When you think about the apps and services that could be considered a direct competitor to Netflix, you might think of HBO, Hulu, and Amazon, just to name a few. However it seems that Netflix is looking beyond its more traditional competition, and are looking at other potential platforms that could compete with its service.During an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Dennis Berman, Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings revealed that platforms such as Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook are some potential competitors. “The competition we worry about is the substitution—when people are spending time on Snapchat or Facebook video or YouTube, or some new app that isn’t yet invented.”
Basically instead of worrying about direct and more obvious competition, Hastings is looking at other services that could potentially be the next Netflix, kind of like how Facebook replaced already popular social networks like Friendster and MySpace back in the day. Hastings also believes that one day movies and TV shows could become a niche business.
“In the long term, you have to believe that movies and TV shows will be like the opera and the novel, pretty nichey businesses. Human entertainment will have moved on to something new. Then the ultimate challenge for us is, can we figure out what that new form of entertainment is?” But what do you guys think? Do apps like Snapchat have the potential to replace Netflix? We know that YouTube is already looking into original programming, but Snapchat could be interesting.
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