Question

Netflix’s goal is the same as all companies: increase shareholder wealth. Other financial goals become derivative to this, such as maximizing long term net cash flows; in other words, ‘make money’. Operationally, the text identified a major goal as getting people to spend as many hours as possible on Netflix. I’m assuming they are pursuing this goal because it increases their long-term net cash flows. It allows them to gain more paying customers and charge more for the service. Drilling further down on the goal of getting people to spend more time on Netflix is the goal of offering great content. The more people enjoy the content, the more time they will spend watching. This probably explains Netflix’s focus on recommendations, which act as nudges encouraging you to watch shows or movies you are likely to enjoy. Netflix probably doesn’t want customers blindly picking shows or movies because there is too great a risk that the customer will not enjoy it, and this will reduce the amount of time spent watching.

When I had Netflix, I watched it on my TV, but I connected my laptop to the TV with an HDMI cord to stream it. So, although I watched on TV, Netflix’s data probably showed me as watching from my laptop. I watched from the TV because the only time I watched was with my spouse and watching with someone else is difficult on a tablet. We occasionally watched movies or shows on the weekends together.   We canceled for the reason identified in the text: we just didn’t use it that much (an hour or two a week).

Express for your feed back. Do you agree?

Answer 1

Netflix is an American entertainment company that specializes in and provides streaming media and video-on-demand online and DVD by mail. The major goal of Netflix, like any other company, is to generate maximum of revenue as fast as they can. So obviously they would want you to spend more of time on Netflix as views & streaming would charge you some bucks and Netflix is going to gain with that.

Also Did You Know, according to Wikipedia, Netflix is the world's 10th-largest internet company by revenue. Since Netflix wants you to spend maximum of your time possible on it, as it is going to gain profit with all those subscriptions and streaming views, netflix is implemented with such algorithm that extracts your browsing habits, your taste in Movies & TV Shows, like the genre you usually like and based on such analysis, it provides you with other related suggestions that you may like or those shows that may seem to interest you. This is done because if netflix provide you with irrelevant suggestions to watch, the user might lose his interest in Netflix's services. So to keep them continuously interested many such techniques are used. Nevertheless, user shouldn't forget his other jobs as Netflix is just a medium for entertainment; Entertainment that can be done in your spare time. One shouldn't get too obsessed with TV Shows & Movies that one spend almost all of his time in it, as there are other things to do as well. One must be smart enough to distribute one's time appropriately.

As in the above text, the author used to watch movies or shows on weekends together with spouse/family ( like a few hours a week) and he canceled because of the reason identified in the text as: (Netflix want you to spend too much of time on it), but that't not the proper judgemental decision. Because though it may want to spend more time over it, you have the choice to watch it as it suits you. No pressure. And I agree with the author, one may even cancel the subscription as one might find it over-priced or may be one can find the alternatives cheaper or whatever the reasons may be. It totally depends on users, and differs from one user to another. Overall, its your time, your money, your choice.