Netflix
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"A video streaming service that is the reason why I'm single"
—The top definition on Urban Dictionary as of 15 November, 2022
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Netflix is first of the major, paid TV streaming services to debut. Netflix launched as a DVD rental by mail service in 1997, sending subscribers rented DVDs in the mail, then sending a new one once the customer had returned that disc. In 2007 Netflix introduced what is now its primary business model of delivering TV shows and movies via internet connection, allowing the user to choose what show to watch and when instead of waiting for the broadcast/cable schedule to show it (if ever).
In 2012, not content with only rebroadcasting older series and faced with studios increasingly realizing the streaming rights they previously sold for cheap were actually worth something, Netflix funded its first original series Lilyhammer. As alternative streaming services began popping up, most of which were owned by major studios who could ensure a monopoly on streaming their back catalog, original content quickly became one of Netflix's major focuses by necessity. The service would also pick up foreign distribution rights for non-English programming to supplement its output.
In April of 2015, Netflix original programming found its then biggest and most culturally significant hit in Marvel's Daredevil. After 2015 however Netflix original content increasingly became infamous for including several tropes in virtually every original production. Any material that was an adaptation (which most were, even if the source material was obscure or created primarily to pitch as a Netflix show) had conspicuous Race Lift, Gender Flip, and Adaptational Sexuality aplenty, programs featured men who are authoritative idiots against women are underappreciated but always right, and (if the show involved action) able to effortlessly beat up large men despite a very small frame. All of this would be filmed on very low budgets resulting in cheap costumes, minimal special effects, and most scenes being set in mundane locations that were poorly lit to cover up these flaws. This became infamous enough even just the phrase "Netflix Adaptation" could evoke these images. Stranger Things would prove the rare exception to this, and be the most popular of Netflix's creations by far, while the Korean Squid Game would also eclipse most of its original programming.
See also Hulu.
- Artifact Title: Netflix is an odd case where the streaming service that the creators originally intended and named the product for was dropped while keeping the name, then a decade later reintroduced the product it was named for and made it the company's main focus.
- Digital Distribution: The Client-Server model.
- They also hold the pay cable rights to Sony Pictures Animation, Relativity Media, Film District and Open Road titles; as well as rerun rights to all the major studios.
- Never Trust a Trailer: They chose to promote the 2020 movie Cuties with what CBC writer Paula Schuck called "the most sexual image of the entire film", leading to a huge Internet backlash against both the movie and Netflix itself before it was ever shown in English.
- No Export for You: Because of licensing concerns, Netflix offers streamed content worldwide, but because of their method of distribution, they only offer DVD subscriptions to U.S. residents, and the streaming libraries available to residents outside of the US are much different than the one within it.
- Offer Void in Nebraska: A variation: Some episodes of shows and special non-episode DVD releases are only available on DVD. These episodes are typically grouped by disc, but some episodes are available for streaming while other episodes on the disc are DVD-only.
- Too Dumb to Live: They, for some reason, didn't realize that hiking up their prices by 60% would mean pretty much half their customers would leave.
- Win Back the Crowd: The company has since recovered, with 137 million subscribers worldwide as of 2018.
- 30-Day Free Trial: Netflix offers free trials of various lengths, mostly thirty days.
- Vanilla Edition: Some of Netflix's DVDs and all of their streamed movies and shows omit special features. Bonus Discs are not included with shipped DVDs. In some countries, English audio and subtitles are the only option because Netflix rarely translates their originals into that language (Czech, Hungarian, some Russian, some Indian languages).