The Streaming Four
9/26/24
I bet every time someone writes “the streaming wars are over, Netflix won”, Ted Sarandos rolls his eyes. Sure, it’s flattering —but is it productive? Just two months ago, Netflix surprised Wall Street by proclaiming that they and YouTube were “the clear leaders in direct-to-consumer entertainment”. YouTube and Netflix do compete —for time spent, consumer dollars, and now advertising dollars. Their revenues and profits are comparable. Both have global scale and enviable tech. But they approach streaming from vastly different positions, leveraging unique and hard-to-replicate strengths. The streaming wars are evolving into multiple battles. Through the lens of Streamonomics, we can analyze which weapon is suited for which fight. But to get a more complete picture we must, at a minimum, look at two other large global players. While they started their journeys later, and thus still have to grow into the economics of the top 2 players, each of them also has unique strengths that will be difficult for the others to replicate. I’m talking about...
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