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There are a few of these that don’t really feel like pivots to me. For example Netflix changing from delivering things via DVD to doing it by streaming just fee

There are a few of these that don’t really feel like pivots to me. For example Netflix changing from delivering things via DVD to doing it by streaming just feels like evolving to suit the market. Would we consider a publisher as pivoting because they now sell ebooks and run news websites instead of printing books and magazines?

jrh206 5y ago
I certainly view Netflix as a pivot. The things the company has to do, day to day, are just drastically different.
- davnicwil 5y ago
  Wasn't the streaming delivery piece intended from the start though, but they just had to wait for the infrastructure to support it so did DVD delivery as a stopgap? I had always assumed this was the case.
  - ng55QPSK 5y ago
    the "Net" in netflix was: you could order on the net, only the delivering changed.
- Beldin 5y ago
  Yes, it hinges on the definition of pivot. From a customer point of view, this is a mere evolution. That this imposes vastly different requirements on the underlying business is not really the problem of the customer. In a similar vein, how would you describe the move of just about every primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions to online teaching? I don't consider that a pivot. It was necessary to continue to deliver the basic added value of these institutions. However, that did require a whole slew of new skills from teachers. So sure, YMMV.
- deltree7 5y ago
  So does Amazon, Apple, IBM and hundreds of other companies
bottled_poe 5y ago
In one respect, this “pivot” is simply changing the medium for delivery of the service. On the other hand, this represents a major shift in the structure of the company, introducing change in basically every department. It seems very naive to presume this shift would be simply an adjustment of the business structure. I would guess the Netflix business as we know it now would have very little resemblance of what it was during those DVD days.
thraxil 5y ago
I actually think Netflix's move towards producing their own shows and movies was more of a "pivot" than going from DVD to online streaming (which I don't see as really any different than Blockbuster going from renting VHS to DVDs).
- aardvark179 5y ago
  Yes, I’d agree with that.
jasode 5y ago
>There are a few of these that don’t really feel like pivots to me. Because no authority dictates the meaning of "pivot", it looks like the concept diverged and became wider: - "pivot" as switching from a unprofitable or failed business idea to a profitable one. A "phoenix rising from the ashes" type of pivot often associated with startups that finally figured out the elusive "Product Market Fit" instead of shutting down. This seems to be the original meaning popularized in 2011 by Eric Ries "Lean Startup" book : https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous... - "pivot" as any change in business focus whether the previous one was profitable or not.
- rexf 5y ago
  That's a good point. I thought pivot meant "switching from a unprofitable or failed business idea to a profitable one". In that sense, IIRC Netflix's founder had the early vision to offer streaming services (one day in the future), so it wasn't a pivot. It was part of the plan. I mean he named his company "Netflix". Does that sound like DVD delivery? No, it sounds like inter(net) + flicks.
Retric 5y ago
Netflix went from legal access to any DVD produced, too needing content deals with the entertainment industry and making their own content. The technical difficulties are minor by comparison. That’s generally what pivoting means, going from chemical to digital cameras for example is a similarly huge jump even if the customers largely stay the same you lost a huge revenue stream from selling and or processing film and now need to spend a lot more on R&D.
- hk1337 5y ago
  Didn’t they still need to workout deals or licenses with the entertainment industry to rent out the DVDs? Didn’t Blockbuster have to do that to provide VHS and DVDs in the store? I still think it was a pivot but not for that reason. Evolving can still be pivoting. Netflix shifted their business from providing physical media to streaming media.
  - astura 5y ago
    No, definitely not, in the US anyone can rent out any physical media legally without any permission from the anyone due to the first sale doctrine. Same as me freely selling or loaning my DVDs and books without asking anyone first. Before Blockbuster/Hollywood Video came to my town there were dozens of the video rental stores, all of which were mom-and-pop operations. Nintendo tried to stop video game rentals during the NES era but failed - there was legislation banning video game rentals that was not passed and then they sued blockbuster for making photocopies of their manuals. I think I remember reading that rental stores having to send multiple employees into multiple stores to purchase Nintendo games because Nintendo had an agreement with retailers not to sell multiple copies of the same game to a single person to discourage rental and reseller purchases.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      While legally you are correct, you want to make deals anyway, if you do you can get plenty of DVDs in on release day (they might sit in your backroom for a few days to ensure it was shipped fast enough). There are other things you can get in a deal if you make one.
cromulent 5y ago
Yeah, I would agree. Keeping up with the times and the market is different to pivoting, as is diversifying and monetising. Did Disney "pivot" from hand-made animations to theme parks and digital streaming? More of an evolution, I think.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Yeah... does every new technology change mean a pivot? Or evolution of business strategy? If Netflix counts as a pivot, I feel like every company more than a few decades old should be on the list. IBM for sure, car companies because they now sell electric cars, banks because they now offer online services...
  - maneesh 5y ago
    I agree that Netflix moving from dvds to streaming could be argued as an evolution instead of a pivot, but I would argue that moving from streaming and delivering others’ content to producing their own content was a very significant shift worthy of being called a pivot.
zalebz 5y ago
There is a great podcast called Land of the Giants and they have a "season" about Netflix (as well as Amazon, Google, Apple); based on the information I learned there I would certainly say it was a risky pivot.
orblivion 5y ago
Looks like you can still rent DVDs from Netflix https://dvd.netflix.com/Movies https://dvd.netflix.com/Movies
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- axiomdata316 5y ago
  Wow thanks for sharing this. I know I'm weird but I think I would still rather get DVDs because you have such a wider selection. And you can get very unique and hard to find movies. You're not locked into licensing deals between large movie studios.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Does anyone else think a new blu/dvd shipping company could work well again with same day shipping assuming the continued fragmentation gets worse and worse?
- maneesh 5y ago
  Netflix still runs a dvd rental business, with a much higher offering of titles (less content restriction than with streaming)
- Jensson 5y ago
  They pivoted from having a bunch of people managing mailing DVD's to people to having a bunch of people managing computer servers. It is really different and there is no reason to assume they would succeed at that, if they built a subpar service they would have lost.
- arlcode 5y ago
  Someone will reinvent cable by bundling services together and charging people for content in which they aren't interested. It'll happen as soon as the fragmentation is worse enough for people to loose interest and willingness to pay for them separately.
astura 5y ago
The real pivot was going from DVD distribution to movie and tv show production. This, of course, only happened because the switch to streaming made it so that Netflix were dependent on content producers. Netflix knew content producers would just create their own streaming service in time and they'd lose all their leverage.
- jaredsohn 5y ago
  Basically is converting from being Blockbuster to being HBO.
  - gcanyon 5y ago
    Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, once said, "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us" I worked for HBO when he said that, and took it very seriously.
rkk3 5y ago
> There are a few of these that don’t really feel like pivots to me. For example Netflix changing from delivering things via DVD to doing it by streaming just feels like evolving to suit the market. Reed Hastings allegedly barred the delivery team executives from his leadership meetings when they were responsible for 100% of the companies revenue. It was a massive, legendary pivot. Pivots are nothing else but evolving to suit the market, at the cost of an established existing business or use case. > Would we consider a publisher as pivoting because they now sell ebooks and run news websites instead of printing books and magazines? I don't see why not, except that their legacy/core businesses are still or until recently responsible for the majority of their revenue [1]. I think there is a difference between adding a new distribution channel and altering the fundamentals of the business. The pivot for publishers has been more from ads -> subs. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/business/media/nyt-earnings-q2.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/business/media/nyt-earnin...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jrh206 5y ago

I certainly view Netflix as a pivot. The things the company has to do, day to day, are just drastically different.

davnicwil 5y ago
Wasn't the streaming delivery piece intended from the start though, but they just had to wait for the infrastructure to support it so did DVD delivery as a stopgap? I had always assumed this was the case.
- ng55QPSK 5y ago
  the "Net" in netflix was: you could order on the net, only the delivering changed.
Beldin 5y ago
Yes, it hinges on the definition of pivot. From a customer point of view, this is a mere evolution. That this imposes vastly different requirements on the underlying business is not really the problem of the customer. In a similar vein, how would you describe the move of just about every primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions to online teaching? I don't consider that a pivot. It was necessary to continue to deliver the basic added value of these institutions. However, that did require a whole slew of new skills from teachers. So sure, YMMV.
deltree7 5y ago
So does Amazon, Apple, IBM and hundreds of other companies

bottled_poe 5y ago

In one respect, this “pivot” is simply changing the medium for delivery of the service. On the other hand, this represents a major shift in the structure of the company, introducing change in basically every department. It seems very naive to presume this shift would be simply an adjustment of the business structure. I would guess the Netflix business as we know it now would have very little resemblance of what it was during those DVD days.

thraxil 5y ago

I actually think Netflix's move towards producing their own shows and movies was more of a "pivot" than going from DVD to online streaming (which I don't see as really any different than Blockbuster going from renting VHS to DVDs).

aardvark179 5y ago
Yes, I’d agree with that.

jasode 5y ago

>There are a few of these that don’t really feel like pivots to me. Because no authority dictates the meaning of "pivot", it looks like the concept diverged and became wider: - "pivot" as switching from a unprofitable or failed business idea to a profitable one. A "phoenix rising from the ashes" type of pivot often associated with startups that finally figured out the elusive "Product Market Fit" instead of shutting down. This seems to be the original meaning popularized in 2011 by Eric Ries "Lean Startup" book : https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous... - "pivot" as any change in business focus whether the previous one was profitable or not.

rexf 5y ago
That's a good point. I thought pivot meant "switching from a unprofitable or failed business idea to a profitable one". In that sense, IIRC Netflix's founder had the early vision to offer streaming services (one day in the future), so it wasn't a pivot. It was part of the plan. I mean he named his company "Netflix". Does that sound like DVD delivery? No, it sounds like inter(net) + flicks.

Retric 5y ago

Netflix went from legal access to any DVD produced, too needing content deals with the entertainment industry and making their own content. The technical difficulties are minor by comparison. That’s generally what pivoting means, going from chemical to digital cameras for example is a similarly huge jump even if the customers largely stay the same you lost a huge revenue stream from selling and or processing film and now need to spend a lot more on R&D.

hk1337 5y ago
Didn’t they still need to workout deals or licenses with the entertainment industry to rent out the DVDs? Didn’t Blockbuster have to do that to provide VHS and DVDs in the store? I still think it was a pivot but not for that reason. Evolving can still be pivoting. Netflix shifted their business from providing physical media to streaming media.
- astura 5y ago
  No, definitely not, in the US anyone can rent out any physical media legally without any permission from the anyone due to the first sale doctrine. Same as me freely selling or loaning my DVDs and books without asking anyone first. Before Blockbuster/Hollywood Video came to my town there were dozens of the video rental stores, all of which were mom-and-pop operations. Nintendo tried to stop video game rentals during the NES era but failed - there was legislation banning video game rentals that was not passed and then they sued blockbuster for making photocopies of their manuals. I think I remember reading that rental stores having to send multiple employees into multiple stores to purchase Nintendo games because Nintendo had an agreement with retailers not to sell multiple copies of the same game to a single person to discourage rental and reseller purchases.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    While legally you are correct, you want to make deals anyway, if you do you can get plenty of DVDs in on release day (they might sit in your backroom for a few days to ensure it was shipped fast enough). There are other things you can get in a deal if you make one.

cromulent 5y ago

Yeah, I would agree. Keeping up with the times and the market is different to pivoting, as is diversifying and monetising. Did Disney "pivot" from hand-made animations to theme parks and digital streaming? More of an evolution, I think.

cortesoft 5y ago
Yeah... does every new technology change mean a pivot? Or evolution of business strategy? If Netflix counts as a pivot, I feel like every company more than a few decades old should be on the list. IBM for sure, car companies because they now sell electric cars, banks because they now offer online services...
- maneesh 5y ago
  I agree that Netflix moving from dvds to streaming could be argued as an evolution instead of a pivot, but I would argue that moving from streaming and delivering others’ content to producing their own content was a very significant shift worthy of being called a pivot.

zalebz 5y ago

There is a great podcast called Land of the Giants and they have a "season" about Netflix (as well as Amazon, Google, Apple); based on the information I learned there I would certainly say it was a risky pivot.

orblivion 5y ago

Looks like you can still rent DVDs from Netflix https://dvd.netflix.com/Movies https://dvd.netflix.com/Movies

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
axiomdata316 5y ago
Wow thanks for sharing this. I know I'm weird but I think I would still rather get DVDs because you have such a wider selection. And you can get very unique and hard to find movies. You're not locked into licensing deals between large movie studios.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Does anyone else think a new blu/dvd shipping company could work well again with same day shipping assuming the continued fragmentation gets worse and worse?

maneesh 5y ago
Netflix still runs a dvd rental business, with a much higher offering of titles (less content restriction than with streaming)
Jensson 5y ago
They pivoted from having a bunch of people managing mailing DVD's to people to having a bunch of people managing computer servers. It is really different and there is no reason to assume they would succeed at that, if they built a subpar service they would have lost.
arlcode 5y ago
Someone will reinvent cable by bundling services together and charging people for content in which they aren't interested. It'll happen as soon as the fragmentation is worse enough for people to loose interest and willingness to pay for them separately.

astura 5y ago

The real pivot was going from DVD distribution to movie and tv show production. This, of course, only happened because the switch to streaming made it so that Netflix were dependent on content producers. Netflix knew content producers would just create their own streaming service in time and they'd lose all their leverage.

jaredsohn 5y ago
Basically is converting from being Blockbuster to being HBO.
- gcanyon 5y ago
  Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, once said, "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us" I worked for HBO when he said that, and took it very seriously.

rkk3 5y ago

> There are a few of these that don’t really feel like pivots to me. For example Netflix changing from delivering things via DVD to doing it by streaming just feels like evolving to suit the market. Reed Hastings allegedly barred the delivery team executives from his leadership meetings when they were responsible for 100% of the companies revenue. It was a massive, legendary pivot. Pivots are nothing else but evolving to suit the market, at the cost of an established existing business or use case. > Would we consider a publisher as pivoting because they now sell ebooks and run news websites instead of printing books and magazines? I don't see why not, except that their legacy/core businesses are still or until recently responsible for the majority of their revenue [1]. I think there is a difference between adding a new distribution channel and altering the fundamentals of the business. The pivot for publishers has been more from ads -> subs. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/business/media/nyt-earnings-q2.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/business/media/nyt-earnin...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]