Screentime

Netflix Enters Middle Age. Brace for Speed Bumps.

Netflix’s domestic streaming business shrank while HBO Max and Disney+ grew.

Photographer: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Europe

For the past decade, Netflix offered the same response every time it had a bad quarter: This is just a blip.

In 2015, it blamed a transition to chip-based credit cards. In 2016, it was media coverage of a price increase. In 2018, it was poor forecasting. All of these shortfalls were temporary annoyances, it said, and none would stop its steady march towards global supremacy.