Looking back, it’s always wild to see how much things have changed, even just when it comes to how we enjoy 2025 movies and anything on the 2025 TV schedule. There is now a whole generation of people who simply don’t understand how we put up with leaving the house to rent a movie, much less then having to leave again at some point to return it or potentially having to pay (GASP!) late fees if we didn’t do it on the timeline of a faceless corporation. Obviously, one of the best streaming services, Netflix, helped change all that. While they didn’t call it “streaming” at first, what the head honchos did call it sounds incredibly old-fashioned now.
What Did Netflix’s Head Honchos Use To Call Streaming?
Seeing as how we now have roughly 4.9 million available streaming services where we can watch anything from reruns of old favorites like I Love Lucy and The Office on demand, and also see a whole host of completely new movies and television shows, it can be hard to believe that there was a time when the internet was so (so, so, SOOOO) slow that it was difficult to even download a photo.
Netflix, which began its by-mail DVD rental service in 1998, can easily be called the company that’s led the streaming boom. But, as the streamer’s current boss, Ted Sarandos, recently told Variety, when he began working with the company in 2000, co-founder Reed Hastings used a very different term for what we all now do on a regular basis. As Sarandos said:
When I first met Reed, he described Netflix almost exactly like it is right now. He didn’t use the word ‘streaming.’ He called it ‘downloading videos’ then, but he was very clear that he thought all entertainment would come into the home on the internet. And this was at a time when no entertainment came into the home that way.
Wow. I simply cannot imagine having that kind of foresight, but that’s why I’m a writer who sometimes makes up words to entertain herself, and not a big-time streaming service CEO.
Again, I very clearly remember the days when not only the idea of “downloading videos” from the internet was insane, but just trying to get online in general could be an ordeal. Remember dial-up? Sure, you could get online, but you couldn’t use the phone at the same time because that landline (Everything was physically connected!!) was the only way to get on the internet.
Now we live in a time when movies are in theaters for only a few weeks, then they can be watched at home (or on the go)…forever. Yes, you will have to subscribe to a streaming service which will likely hike its prices to unfathomable degrees, and if they have any original streaming shows they will almost certainly cancel your favorite one way before you’re ready to see it end, but, guys…THIS IS THE PRICE WE PAY FOR BEING ENTERTAINED WHILE STAYING AT HOME AND NOT MOVING AN INCH.
So, while we wait for someone to figure out how to beam movies and TV shows directly into our brains, “downloading videos” is the way to go. And thank the entertainment gods for that.
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