This month in history: Netflix launches streaming

Up until 2007, Netflix was just a DVD-rental business that posted out DVDs to its customers, but then on 15 January that year they announced they would be launching a movie streaming service over the internet.

We all know now that this was the beginning of a complete 180-turn in the way we consume TV and movies. However, at the time, this move was met with concern from industry analysts who were weary of Netflix's falling market value and were concerned that the company had poured (what now seems a relatively tiny amount of) USD$40 million to build the streaming service.

Many investment advisors recommended selling Netflix stocks after this announcement. If you had invested $10,000 in the company at the time of this announcement, at the end of 2020 it would have been worth $1,679,286!