If one takes a closer look at the press releases and posts made by company bosses, he finds that Netflix is not trying to emphasize itself as a tech company any more. They are trying to focus upon things that have a cultural aspect; things that they believe will help the company in forging deeper emotional ties with their huge subscriber base. Riding on a rock solid Netflix support, it is a clear message that the company is now more interested in projecting itself as harbinger of culture instead of just talking about increase in subscriptions and cash flow.
Not just reflection but creation of culture
Netflix has been talking about how it has created a brigade of young stars Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) and Katherine Langford (13 Reasons Why). It is also telling that Bird Box was watched by 80 million of its subscribers. They are also saying that Fortnite, a video game, is a bigger competitor for the company than Hulu or HBO. These are the metrics that you expect from a blogger, not from a company that is already miles ahead of all its competitors combined together.
It is a clear indication that Netflix has reached a stage where it thinks it is creating culture rather than simply reflecting it to the masses like other media service companies. Netflix now seems more interested in talking to its consumer base rather than Netflix investors. Today, some of the most watched television dramas are those that are placed on Netflix platform rather than a cable or satellite channel.
Not boasting about earnings or technology
As Netflix braces itself to face stiff competition from dozens of other players like HBO, Amazon, Hulu, ESPN, and Apple, it wants its subscribers to know that they are better off staying with Netflix. It wants them to know that Netflix is the only platform where they find movies, TV shows, and drama series that everyone at the office or the social media is talking about. This is primarily the reason why Netflix is boasting not about technology or its high tech streaming service but the content it has for its subscribers.
Experts and analysts see it as a kind of assuredness that Netflix enjoys because of its huge and diverse content capable of earning recurrent revenue. The company knows that it cannot be challenged by its nearest competitors in terms of subscribers and popular content in the coming weeks or months. This thinking is also a result of cool online Netflix support that drives loyalty form its customers.
A large part of the investment planned by Netflix happens to be not in technology but in content. In 2018, Netflix allotted $1.3 billion for R&D and technology but it invested more than $10 billion on acquisition and creation of content. The company knows that the higher the number of people watching and talking about its content, the more popular and indispensible it becomes. This thinking has reinforced in recent times when one of Netflix movies, Roma, got a nomination for best movie at the Oscar awards.