THB #277: Streaming, Legacy & MONEY

There is a certain weird satisfaction with The Media suddenly jumping on the position on streaming that I have been writing about for almost a decade. But “I told you so” gets boring in a hurry and most writers prefer to pretend they came up with a new idea, no matter how long its been bandied about, so I expect no roses thrown at my feet. (Always Wrong Rich Greenfield will throw feces… his own, no doubt.)

Like everything else, there is a history. In this case, it’s not that complicated.

When Netflix started licensing for streaming, studios felt it was found money. The streaming quality was poor. The windows structure of that time was still solid, although DVD had already shown a steep descent from the early 2000s, when everyone was getting high on their own cash supply for those few years when you almost could not lose money on any movie.

On the day that House of Cards premiered - February 1, 2013 - Netflix stock was at $23.54. Five years later, it was $267. The worldwide subscriber cou…