What’s leaving in 2020: Netflix?

One major problem facing the audience and users of Netflix are the new streaming services coming out. Warner Brothers and Disney, soon to be the biggest competitors of Netflix, will have their own streaming services, which will create competition between streaming platforms. This creates competition for Netflix because the new streaming services want their content only on their streaming platforms.

Netflix will now have to figure out how to replace the movies and TV shows that will be leaving with new quality content. As Netflix only owns about 10% of all content on Netflix, they must find a way to still provide content that viewers want to watch.

In order to compete with all the competition, Gregory Peters, chief product officer at Netflix, explained that if we “effectively invest the money that our subscribers give us every month so that we can give them incredible content and a better product experience. And if we do that well, we create more value for our subscribers and then occasionally, we’ll come to them and we’ll ask for a little bit more money so that we can actually start that next cycle of investment.” In my opinion, I don’t think this would be a good solution for Netflix because eventually the prices will get so high that people will no longer want to pay for Netflix.

Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, also said, “competition in the streaming space is really about winning time away from other entertainment activities like Xbox, Fortnight, YouTube and HBO.” In other words, Netflix does not worry about the other competitors. They want to make the content provided on Netflix interesting and a better experience for their subscribers compared to other streaming platforms. This approach will help keep people on Netflix rather than subscribing to other streaming platforms.

While this is a good attitude for Netflix when approaching all the new competitors, I think a better solution would be for Netflix to start making their own content. Netflix does have some original content but not all their content labelled as an original is owned by them. If Netflix can make more original content that interests their subscribers, then they will be able to easily replace all the content that is being taken off.

One of Netflix’s biggest problems is earning money because right now they only rely on the money they get from their subscribers each month. If Netflix can find a way to earn more money, without increasing their prices, then I think they will be able to compete with the incoming streaming services. If Netflix can make their own content, they will get more subscribers which leads to more money being made. With more money being made Netflix can afford to keep popular shows like Friends; one of the most watched sitcoms on Netflix.