Why Is Competing With YouTube Hard for Netflix?

Peter Kafka says competing with YouTube and TikTok is a hard business model for Netflix because people can really watch only one thing at a time.

Netflix has spent the last year or so trying to act a bit more like YouTube by bringing over some podcasters, and Peter Kafka says that push has not moved the needle. He says it may be that streaming has topped out, and he does not know that anyone has a good answer for Netflix or the other traditional streamers.

He says a TikTok-style scroll feed will show up on Netflix TV within the next year, then asks why anyone would care. The issue is not vertical video or infinite scrolling. The issue is whether Netflix can offer something people want to see, or did not know they wanted to see. Netflix has a very deep, wide catalog and is good at showing a homepage that looks different from one person to the next. The platforms it competes with have infinite content. Peter Kafka does not know how Netflix goes up against infinite content unless it fully changes its business model, and he does not think Netflix is going to do that.