Think about the person that you were this time in February of 2013. Many college students were barely high school students or younger, and Chuck Staben was still at the University of South Dakota.
In much the same way we were all remarkably different people, our Netflix options were substantially limited back then as well. “House of Cards” was released Feb. 1, 2013, and the next six years would be a wild ride of mind-boggling mountains of original content. Five more original pieces of content will be released by the end of this year, and by a quick Wikipedia search, there are no fewer than 307 Netflix Originals and hundreds more that are continuations of other series or intellectual property. Oh and by the way, there are at least 248 projects planned or in production for the near future.
I don’t need to do the math on how many minutes of entertainment that is or how many audiences are appealed to, because it is absolutely absurd that Netflix has put such an incredible emphasis on content creation. This is not to say I think Netflix should stop pursuing every bizarre project in its lineup (I cannot express how excited I am for the untitled Jenji Kohan “Teen Jesus” comedy series yet to be announced). However, the fact remains it just doesn’t make sense to take on such a load.
Jonah Baker | Argonaut
As conscious consumers have probably noticed, Netflix’s library has ballooned and so have our monthly subscription fees. The price hikes started in 2014, right as the push for original content was getting started. Premium users saw their bills jump 50 percent to $12 a month and subsequent increases have brought the cost of premium to $16 a month, while standard and basic plans now cost $12 and $9 a month, respectively, after increases.
Even with the recent price increases, Netflix users can expect further hikes in the near future as the streaming giant continues its aggressive push for new in-house productions. With hundreds more projects on tap and many as financially daunting as “The Crown,” there isn’t exactly a roadmap to level prices.
As of Sept. 30, 2018, CNBC reported Netflix was carrying as much as $12 billion in debt. Still, the company shows no signs of slowing down as it spends billions producing hundreds of new ventures. Perhaps even most daunting, those figures don’t even take into account the biggest potential iceberg for our latest unsinkable tech giant.
Disney is set to launch its own streaming service in late 2019, and its acquisition of 21st Century Fox (and therefore Hulu) means everyone’s favorite mouse will have two hefty Netflix competitors that theoretically offer comparable programming options for lower prices. And of course, this means you won’t be able to find any past or present Disney or Marvel blockbusters on Netflix as long as Disney owns its own streaming services.
All of these negatives mean Netflix is essentially betting the superiority of its own original content will justify rising prices and keep subscribers in line. Diminishing returns from those highly touted projects seem unlikely to compete with the pan-generational appeal of everything Disney creates, especially when combined with the near-immediate access Hulu has to almost anything fresh on cable.
Netflix still has a subscriber base magnitudes larger than its competitors, but its current gluttony for original content will not set the streaming giant up for success in the long run. Non-original content will lessen its reach into every single imaginable niche, but many of Netflix’s users watch much of the same programming that was available all the way back in 2013 anyway — I’m looking at you, bingers of“Friends” and “The Office.”
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker