With digital streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Instant Video on the rise, could this be the death of traditional television as we know it? Netflix Chairman and CEO Reed Hastings seems to think so. According to CNBC, he predicts that all of TV will move to the Internet within the next 10 to 20 years.
It’s not like he’s been wrong about this sort of thing before. The businessman says that when he first started Netflix, he was willing to bet that the Internet would be a fast growing industry because he saw the great consumer experiences that the Internet allowed.
It’s a good thing he put his faith in the digital world because the online-based service, which streams movies, television and its own original programming, closed out last quarter with a reported 3.3 million new subscribers. Back in 2002, the streaming site went for merely 85 cents a share and last Friday, it closed at $102 per share.
On why Netflix expanded so quickly, Hastings toldJim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money, "It's really the Internet. The Internet is transforming so many sectors of our economy, and we are Internet TV; and that sector has grown from very small 15 years ago to starting to be significant now."
Don't most people exclusively stream TV shows, anyway?
