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Today, Netflix is one of the most popular streaming services because it offers various movies, TV shows, and docuseries. In 2024, Netflix had around 270 million subscribers worldwide. The start of Netflix streaming has also spawned other streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video and Hulu. Netflix's and other streaming services' successes are causing a battle with internet companies.

Netflix was started in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph. When they first created the company, it was similar to Blockbuster because you could rent movies, but they would come in the mail. In 2000, they changed the service into an online subscription service with a fee, but you had unlimited rentals for however long you wanted them. Marc Randolph said he feared failing when they first started Netflix. The first time they sent a DVD out was to themselves to see if it would break. When they first started, people did not like what they had created. “People found it confusing. The site crashed. No one behaved the way he expected. No one rented from us.” To get to Netflix was a success; they had a lot of trial and error, and every time they failed, they found something that helped in the long run. Hastings and Randolph started this because of late payments from movie rentals, so they tried to create something where people wouldn't have those issues anymore.

The invention of Netflix changed our world because it eliminated having to play for each movie and worrying about late fees. Netflix also changed our world because film comes out on a streaming service like Netflix before it comes out on DVD. This invention also allowed people to get rid of their cable boxes because other services have come out with live streams, such as YouTube TV, which is the same as having a cable box. You can watch stuff on demand, live stream, or just watch regular TV, and you can save shows or movies to your DVR without having a box. None of this would have been possible without Netflix really starting it all. It changed communication because people stopped having to be in the same room or at the same TV to watch the same show. For example, during the pandemic, Netflix came out with an extension where you can watch something on Netflix with your friends on what was essentially a Facetime call. While there were many positive effects, there were also many adverse effects. The start of Netflix started many other platforms. Both Netflix and other platforms continue to add abilities and increase their prices, which means they are competing. A time when this happened was when Hulu had live streams, but Netflix didn’t do live streams. Suddenly, in 2024, Netflix added live streams of shows and games, copying Hulu, but these live streams are increasing the prices, decreasing the numbers since they can get the same thing somewhere else.