How Netflix started the UX revolution
The glorious end to traditional cable service as we know it
Would you call Netflix a user experience company? Most probably wouldn’t, but it’s at the heart of every move they’ve made over the course of their existence. Just like Apple is heralded as a design-company first and foremost, I would call Netflix a user-experience organization.
When Netflix was founded (way back in the paleo-internet age of 1997), cable television had been living a long life as the only way to get your entertainment, sports, and up-to-the-minute(ish) news — basically a media experience. Newspapers and books had been feeling their mortality for decades. TV was king. If they had been trying to create a better experience for content-consumers instead of protecting their cash cow of advertising, we might not be counting the days until they are replaced.
The lack of choice in consuming entertainment allowed the cable industry to grow large and unchecked. Advertising became more and more accepted and revenue became more important than the content that we were all hoping to get with our “cable subscriptions.” Just typing those words makes me feel like I’m about to go extinct. “Why… in my day, we had to pay for hundreds of channels we didn’t want or need to see a few channels that were mainly advertising!”
Even though Netflix wasn’t originally in the digital streaming or content-creation business, they recognized quickly that physical media (DVD rentals) in the entertainment industry was an unsustainable business model and a bad user experience. The thought about their user’s experience and they watched Blockbuster open more and more brick-and-mortar stores while quietly focusing on their mission:
Becoming the best global entertainment distribution service, licensing entertainment content around the world, creating markets that are accessible to film makers, [and] helping content creators around the world to find a global audience.
They realized that they didn’t need a physical location anymore (or physical media at all in the future). They just needed to provide a better experience for users that wanted to consume media then their competition. If they could ship someone a movie within a few days and the customer never had to leave home to pick it up or drop it off, they would be creating time for that person. The experience was so simple that people slowly started to migrate to them. Blockbuster started losing market-share to Netflix almost immediately.
By 2006, Blockbuster had lost almost 50% of it’s value as Netflix gained traction and market-share.
Netflix showed people a better way to watch more of the content they loved and by improving that experience, they disrupted an entire industry. If they continue to focus on their mission, traditional cable subscriptions are the next logical target. Netflix has quietly been producing more content than basically anyone else this year, spending over $6 Billion. I’m sure you’ve heard some of their award-winning original titles (Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt… just to name a few).
My friends and I used to talk about “cutting the cord” of our cable subscriptions until most of us finally did it. The same way home phones started to disappear — being replaced by mobile devices, cable subscriptions are starting to be a thing of the past. Now we don’t pay huge monthly fees for hundreds of channels that we don’t watch, but can still see all the content we’d like through streaming services like HBOnow and Hulu. But because profits are currently up, Comcast, Verizon, Frontier along with other cable companies, haven’t even considered changing how the media on their network is consumed until very recently. They haven’t tried to drastically improve the experience. Netflix, HBO, and Showtime (and occasionally Amazon) are now how I consume 99% of my entertainment.
Netflix, through an easy-to-use interface, showed us how simple watching entertainment through the internet could be. They used strategic partnerships with Nintendo, Xbox, Roku, Amazon and more to ensure that people didn’t have to watch from their computers. Anyone could sit with their friends and family and stream thousands of hours of media whenever they liked. That genie won’t go back into the bottle.
Shows and movies automatically pick up where you leave off without you having to do anything special to “save your spot” or DVR a thing. Netflix understands that when consuming media, you are at the mercy of one of the most important rules of interface design; Don’t make me think.
They let users consume what they want, when they want it — without a penalty (in the form of ads or time restrictions—like the most major networks). With that freedom, Netflix administered the first dose of poison into the traditional-cable well. People’s eyes are open now to the pure freedom of watching whatever they want for a small monthly fee. The value of which is easy to see, especially when Netflix threw it’s weight behind original programming. Now users can pay for a month of Netflix and binge-watch award-winning shows and movies and then cancel their subscription for another 3 months. You would almost feel like you were robbing Netflix.
That’s the beauty of company that has created such a vastly better experience than anyone else. They know you’ll be back. And they don’t hold you hostage. I’ve been a Netflix subscriber since 2008 with no plans to stop, so they’ve been getting my monthly fees for almost a decade and I’m not nearly the only one. Their longevity is because of their passion for providing a better experience for their customers.
This revolutionary thinking will continue to propel Netflix into the ranks of most-profitable, disruptive, and consumer-friendly companies in the world. Look for more incredible shows and movies out of them along with continuous improvements to the experience of consuming that media. They are fanatics about experience and a perfect example of how being a user-experience-organization can improve your bottom-line.
