4 Netflix

Netflix was in a state of change in the early ’10s. You might not remember, but Netflix’s original business model was shipping rented DVDs through the mail. And in 2009, digital streams surpassed its DVD delivery business for the first time. In summer 2010, Netflix officially launched its first app.

The Netflix of yesterday was a different animal than it is today. It relied on a catalog of content that was mostly third-party — it wouldn’t debut its first Netflix Original until a few years later. But, like with online music streaming, Netflix was one of the first apps to capitalize on movie and TV content streaming. And we may owe the very concept of “binge-watching” to the platform.