WHAT’S NEW, NETFLIX?

Arianna Piper, Staff Writer

Co-founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, Netflix has recently celebrated its nineteenth birthday. With both men being software engineers, it wasn’t that difficult to figure out how to make their idea a reality. According to some, when Blockbuster charged Mr. Hastings a $40 late fee after he didn’t return “Apollo 13,” he came up with Netflix, a way to rent out movies, and on August 29, 1979, they started their business, officially launching the rental site in 1998. By 1999 they had their own monthly rates, keeping with the idea of renting out movies until 2007 when they decided they were going to begin streaming them instead. In the year 2000, they had come up with the idea of personalized accounts, where the site recommended movies for them based on what they had previously watched.  Then in 2005, the Netflix subscriptions topped at 4.2 million, and they are still growing. During 2008-2009 they were partnering with electronic companies, such as Microsoft. With more opportunities for people to have access to shows and movies they love, they had over 20 million subscribers by 2010. Still wanting to be able to rent out DVDs, Netflix made an add-on company known as Qwikster in 2011, but due to customers objecting, they dismissed the idea. Still, they debuted multiple original shows such as “House Of Cards” and “Lilyhammer.”  Up to this day, Netflix is available worldwide and has over 50 million subscribers among forty countries, 36 million being from the U.S.A.  itself.  As of January 20 Netflix had 6,494 movies and 1,609 shows, and there is no up-to-date cataloged information. With movies ranging from comical to horrific and romantic to action filled, Netflix is quite the entertainment.wha