Chapter 193 Netflix’s Challenge
The United States today is no longer like the one in the first half of the last century, when there was still such a strong filter of admiration for the British aristocracy.
At that time, the "hillbillies" in North America really followed the lives of British aristocrats just like fans followed idols.
Newspapers are also happy to report the gossip news and details of the gatherings of the British aristocrats in large sections.
There are even special "support groups" that pay attention to the Queen's daily clothing, diet and even her pets, and they never tire of imitating them.
Today, as the economy and culture of England and even Europe have been surpassed by the United States, the so-called "British aristocracy" is no longer so popular in the United States, and going long is just the icing on the cake.
The only exception is the British royal family. It may be said that "distance creates beauty." America's concern and enthusiasm for the British royal family still exists.
The wedding of the Prince of Wales and Princess Diana was broadcast most crazily in North America and became one of the most watched TV programs in the United States in the 1980s. At that time, the union of the two satisfied many people's expectations of the prince and the princess in fairy tales. Princess fantasy.
Just like Barron at this time, the enthusiasm he felt, in addition to his status as a duke, was more about the wealth and influence he had at this time.
At this time, Nicole Kidman had divorced Tom Cruise two years ago and was focusing on her career.
"I also served as a producer before. It is a horror film and it should be released in two months..."
It can be seen that Nicole Kidman is still very enthusiastic about the young and handsome British Duke. At first, the two of them talked about some interesting things in Hollywood in a corner of the hall, but neither Barron nor Nicole were too Eye-catching, people came over to say hello to them from time to time.
So at the back, at Nicole's invitation, Barron went up to the balcony on the second floor with her and had a chat where they would not be disturbed.
I have to say that Nicole's eloquence was very good, which made Barron feel like a spring breeze and very happy. In the end, he also poured his blood into Nicole...
…
It has been nearly a year since DS Capital last injected capital into Netflix.
Now, Netflix's stock price has risen to more than $25 per share.
The current stock price has increased by more than 400% compared to October last year, when Netflix's stock price was about to fall below $5.
Even when DS Capital originally invested in Netflix and obtained its additional shares at a price of US$10 per share, Netflix's current stock price has risen by more than 150%!
The main reason for this is that Netflix has more than 1 million subscribers, and they have successfully started making profits after the Internet bubble.
Although the current Netflix company is called an Internet company, in fact, they have not yet involved in the streaming media service that will directly make its market value take off. They are just a company that sells discs - they are also the giants in the video disc rental business. What is different about Shida is that it puts this business online.
However, Hastings has not been so relaxed recently, because at this time, their biggest competitor has also begun to involve online leasing business.
Blockbuster, which entered the video rental industry in 1985, made an extraordinary move and entered the market as a large-scale chain store. It spent US$6 million to build a warehouse and expanded crazily with richer video resources.
In 1989, a new Blockbuster store opened every 17 hours, all in high-traffic locations.
At its peak, Blockbuster claimed that "70% of people in the United States could find a Blockbuster store within a 10-minute drive."
However, what many users have criticized is that Blockbuster will charge "overdue fees" to customers who do not return DVDs on time.
This revenue alone accounts for more than 10% of Blockbuster's total revenue. At its peak, Blockbuster collected US$800 million in overdue fees, accounting for 16% of total revenue.
More and more customers were unhappy with late fees, which became the starting point for the establishment of Netflix in 1997.
Later, in an interview, Netflix founder Hastings claimed that he was initially forced to charge $40 by Blockbuster because he forgot to return the movie, so he started his business out of anger.
As for whether this is actually the case, it is difficult to get into the details.
Netflix's model is to put the rental business online, and there are no overdue fees - order the disc online and mail it offline.
In 2000, Netflix lost $57.4 million and was unsustainable...
At that time, Hastings approached Blockbuster and suggested that Blockbuster buy them for $50 million, and Netflix could help Blockbuster manage its online business.
In response, Blockbuster directly refused. They did not like Netflix at all, and they felt that with their own resources, they could easily launch a similar business.
This is a bit like when classmate Xiaoma wanted to sell OICQ to Zhalang for US$1.5 million, but was rejected by Zhalang. The reason was that Zhalang's technical staff felt that OICQ was too simple and they could make it in a month, so it was not worth it. Rich……
However, Blockbuster did have such confidence at the time. As long as they were willing, Netflix would definitely lose even if it had a first-mover advantage.
Just at the beginning of this year, Netflix announced that it had reached one million subscribers, which also attracted the attention of Blockbuster CEO John Antioco, who began to pay attention to online rentals.
Next, Blockbuster spent $1 million to acquire a small online DVD rental company, and Antioco gave one of his men, Evangelis, a sum of money to run independently.
Evangelis spent half a year directly copying Netflix.
So now Netflix faces direct competition from Blockbuster's online business.
When Hastings was chatting with Barron, he also talked about this matter. It can be said that he was still facing a formidable enemy at this time.
However, Barron didn't pay too much attention to this, because he knew that although Blockbuster's online business once caused a lot of pressure on Netflix, they were destined to fail.
The main reason is that it seems that the biggest enemy of Blockbuster's online business is Netflix, but in fact their biggest enemy is Blockbuster itself, or in other words, their too strong offline store business.
Many of Blockbuster's offline stores are franchise stores. Out of their own interests, those store managers will resist the company's promotion of online business - they all rent DVDs online, and the store's income will naturally be greatly affected... …
This is just like Kodak, who first invented the digital camera, refrigerated it for the sake of its own film industry, and was eventually eliminated by digital cameras.
Therefore, Barron expressed support for Hastings both inside and outside the words, and said that DS Capital is willing to continue investing in Netflix if necessary.
His move once again created a wave of goodwill among Hastings...
It’s just that Netflix is not short of funds now. After all, they have achieved profitability, and they have not yet involved the streaming media business that requires burning money.
But when it comes to the streaming media business, Barron naturally knows that it will also be a promising track in the future.
Just like in the future, many giants such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and YouTube will gather here.
But it's too early to consider this now. After all, the broadband speed at this time has not yet reached the conditions for it to explode.
Even DailyVideo.com, jointly launched by O2 Telecom and SEM Group, limits the size of videos uploaded by users due to broadband transmission speed.
Otherwise, why didn’t YouTube appear until 2005, and Netflix’s streaming business only started to develop after that?
