Five Ways Netflix Used Psychology to Become the World’s Biggest Streaming Platform

And What It Can Teach Us About Creating Better Experiences

If there’s a company synonymous with a seamless customer experience, it’s Netflix. Over the past two decades, the platform has become the default entertainment source for many. Fifteen percent of the world’s web traffic goes to Netflix, and during the first few months of the pandemic, streaming traffic increased another 12%.

Netflix has grown from a plucky startup to a company with a market value of $247 billion. And that growth mainly came from subscriber acquisition. As of 2020, the platform had more than 200 million total customers. But new customers can’t drive Netflix’s business forever — eventually, there won’t be enough new subscribers to convert.

That’s why the goal of Netflix’s experience is to keep customers streaming. Co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings has often cited “hours per subscriber per month” as Netflix’s number one measure of success. The brand considers its real competition to be time, not other streaming platforms. Netflix thinks of activities like video games, hobbies, YouTube, and even sleep to be competitors.

Netflix wins when people watch — so much so that it considers sleep a competitor.

The brand’s success is down to many factors, but its customer experience is one of the biggest. But how did…