As pervasive as streaming is today, it was only in 2007 that Netflix—then known as a mail-delivery DVD rental service—began offering its users the ability to watch films through a high-speed internet connection. The timing couldn’t have been better for Netflix, which was in the midst of a fierce competition with its brick-and-mortar rival, Blockbuster Video, for supremacy of the home video market. At the time, most consumers in the United States streamed content on their desktop or laptop computers.
That same year, however, Apple launched a revolutionary new product that would soon change the future of e-commerce and entertainment. The iPhone’s popularity launched the smartphone era in telecommunications, giving consumers the ability to connect to the internet instantly and almost anywhere. Being off-line and online were now indistinguishable. Netflix’s bet on streaming—originally considered a complement to, not substitute for, its mail-delivery service—was perfectly positioned to benefit from this sea change in consumer behavior. By 2010, as streaming solidified its dominance in the home entertainment market, Blockbuster Video had filed for Chapter 11.
formerly Mad Cornish Projectionist.