Trivia
HardNetflix Was Created In Response To Late Fees Incurred From The Rental Of Which Movie?
Answer: Apollo 13
While necessity might be the mother of many inventions, embarrassment should get a little credit too. After a particularly high late-return fee at his local rental place, Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings started thinking about how there had to be a better way to do things. He described the moment in a 2009 column in Fortune magazine.
“The genesis of Netflix came in 1997 when I got this late fee, about $40, for Apollo 13. I remember the fee because I was embarrassed about it. That was back in the VHS days, and it got me thinking that there’s a big market out there.
So I started to investigate the idea of how to create a movie-rental business by mail. I didn’t know about DVDs, and then a friend of mine told me they were coming. I ran out to Tower Records in Santa Cruz, Calif., and mailed CDs to myself, just a disc in an envelope. It was a long 24 hours until the mail arrived back at my house, and I ripped them open and they were all in great shape. That was the big excitement point.”
Nearly two decades after the fact, Netflix is dominating not only the video disc-by-mail market, but the streaming market too. Not a bad return on investment for a $40 late fee.
Trivia
HardWhat Was The First Volunteer Distributed Computing Project?
Trivia
HardAmazon CEO Jeff Bezos Funded An Expedition To Find What?
Trivia
Very HardWho Coined The Term “Cyberpunk”?
Trivia
EasyFood Allergies Are An Inflammatory Reaction To What Compound In The Food?
Trivia
EasyThe Same Bacteria Responsible For Foot Odor Is Also Used In Crafting?
Trivia
HardWhich Search Phrase Did Google Temporarily Ban Under The Belief They Were Experiencing A Cyber Attack?
Trivia
HardWhich Technology Giant Actually Makes Most Of Its Money From Insurance Sales?
Trivia
HardIn Ancient Greece, The People Of Boeotia Were Renowned For Their?
Trivia
HardNintendo Experimented In The Late 1980s With What Odd NES Peripheral?