How Netflix has changed content consumption

Our usual conversational icebreakers like “What are your hobbies?” or “What are you reading nowadays” have now been replaced by more or less one common question, “What are you watching on Netflix these days?”

In this day and age, it is hard to imagine anyone without a Netflix subscription, absorbing the same or at least similar content like us in their leisure. Netflix has transformed the way people now consume content, but how?

Spoilt for choices

For a long time, people were limited to shows that were at present running on their TV sets or movies playing at nearby theatres. Online streaming, though existed, was not hugely popular amongst the Indian community.

But Netflix opened a whole new world for us. It was its You Name It You Got It service that drew the consumers in. Every movie that is worth our time is on this platform, from old to new to the latest releases, it successfully covers a vast number of genres.

Netflix churns out series like no other platform, be it an original or another production, not a week goes by where there is not some new show or tv series to binge-watch on this platform.

Binge-watch it

There was a time when you had to wait for an entire week for an episode to air. But Netflix transformed the way even tv series are consumed by releasing entire seasons at once, instead of an episode. It has made Binge-Watching widely popular amongst the youth.

From an unhealthy addiction to shows and TV, binge-watching has now become the new cool and hip way to consume your favourite shows.

Language no bar

Amazing content was being produced in French, Spanish, and many other languages that were not commonly spoken around the world, Netflix bridged that gap by a simple step.

Just by adding subtitles to every movie and show on its platform, Netflix rendered language inconsequential in front of a great storyline and plot. The biggest examples of cross-language successes are Narcos, Dark, Perdia, etc.

And if subtitles are too distracting for the viewer, they can most probably be able to find their favourite show or movie dubbed in common speaking languages.

The convenience of it all

You reach late to the movie or miss the telecast of a show; you may miss out on an integral plot of the whole story. We didn’t realize it until now how bound we were by certain air hours of our to-watch list movies and tv shows. An entire separate schedule was built around their timings so that we don’t miss out on them.

Netflix, arguably, has set the viewer free from those bounds. Though it does hold us in with the binge-watching and endless supply of content, at least we can pause, rewind or fast-forward it and live in the illusion that we control this over-the-top (OTT) platform and not the other way around.

We can watch it whenever we want, from wherever we want, it has made entertainment extremely convenient for us.

The bold and unapologetic

The continuous banning of movies or cutting of pivotal scenes had enraged the Indian audience for a long time.

To imagine something like a Sacred Games or Lust Stories find uncensored screen time in a theatre or TV screens is next to impossible.

But with Netflix, gone are the days where the Censor Board would have a field day with content that it would deem too controversial or dark or inappropriate for the audience.

You can complain about it or embrace it, but Netflix is here to stay.