Can Netflix take on YouTube?
Opening up new markets with the Wedge Strategy.
Back in May 2022, I wrote a piece titled Content is King but Distribution is God.
The argument was simple. Netflix had something that most of the streaming industry did not: distribution. And that was the real moat.
It wasn’t enough to own a library of high-value content. You needed a global distribution-machine capable of putting that content in front of hundreds of millions of people.
Within three years the stock 8X'd – later correcting by 50% and moving back to its 200-week moving average, this July.
That's when I published Leveraging Distribution.
One of my points was that Netflix could take on YouTube, not by trying to recreate it – but by attacking its moat.
Give proven creators another home – an alternative to YouTube.
They wouldn’t have to leave YouTube. Netflix would simply give them another audience, another distribution channel and another way to monetise their work.
By August, YouTube was reportedly offering some of its biggest creators millions of dollars to stay away from Netflix.
The first wedge was in 🧀
What happens if Netflix becomes the second major home for creators?
