Netflix was born in 1997 from an idea by Reed Hastings , a computer engineer with a Stanford degree, who after selling his company Pure Software to Rational Software decided to embark on a new adventure. The idea came to him when he was forced to pay a 40 dollar penalty for returning the Apollo 13 film late, and from here the story of the global streaming giant begins…
Netflix was born in Los Gatos, California, as a service for renting DVDs, VHS and video games by mail. All you had to do was connect to the website, choose the film from those available and wait for the product to arrive via post. All for about $6, including shipping. However, the formula struggled to take off, so Hastings decided to switch to an unlimited monthly subscription formula. You could choose 3 titles, receive them by mail, return them and receive others several times in the same month. With this new formula Netflix exploded.
In 2005, Netflix shipped a million DVDs a day; in 2009 it had a catalog of 100,000 titles on DVD alone and exceeded 10 million subscribers.
After shipping the billionth DVD to the United States in February 2007, Netflix decides to make a change: the rental of films is accompanied by a platform for video streaming in the same way. In fact, always with a monthly subscription, you can watch all the films and TV series you want online on the Netflix website without any limits.
And it’s a revolution.
In 2000 he offered himself $50 million to Blockbuster, which turned it down. After fifteen years Netflix already had almost seventy million subscribers while Blockbuster went bankrupt…
With over twenty-five million users in the USA, Netflix decides to invest in the original production of TV series and films. We started in March 2011 with House of Cards , a TV series based on the trilogy of the same name by English writer Michael Dobbs, which tells the story behind the scenes of British politics. David Fincher, director of Fight Club, had been thinking about adapting the work to American politics for a few years and found fertile ground in Netflix.
All the episodes of the first series were released in February 2013 on the Netflix online platform and the binge watching phenomenon was born , the practice of watching multiple episodes of a TV series in a row, without stopping. House of Cards is so successful that it is sold all over the world and wins several Golden Globes , spurring Netflix to produce new TV series under the Netflix Originals brand . If you haven’t already done so, see our ranking of the 10 best Netflix Originals productions .
In July 2011 Netflix announced its arrival in Latin America, but the infrastructure for Internet connection was not adequate, slowing down its expansion. In 2012 Netflix landed in Great Britain and subsequently in Northern Europe. In 2014 the service is present in almost all countries of the European Union and
Since 22 October 2015 Netflix has also been present in Italy
Since January 2016, Netflix has brought its streaming service to over 190 countries around the world.At the end of 2018 it reached its record of 139 million subscribers worldwide!
In 2018, Netflix was nominated for 112 Emmy Awards , capping a 17-year run of HBO as the top-ranked network. Since 2015 he has also started producing films, starting with the original Beasts of No Nation .
But the first Emmy that Netflix won, in 2012, is perhaps the most memorable: an Emmy Engineering Award , given to those individuals or organizations who have profoundly changed the way we watch television .
