Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America's Eyeballs

by Gina Keating

The consultant had described an integrated in-store/online DVD rental plan that, had it been carried out as described, would have posed a lethal threat to Netflix by giving Blockbuster Online access to the twenty million active customers of Blockbuster’s stores. The convenience of getting a movie in the stores combined with the selection of online rental was something that Netflix could not match. But Hastings was so confident that Blockbuster could not master the complicated technology to integrate the two that he went out of his way to dismiss the service. “In terms of their online efforts, we expect Blockbuster.com to be approximately as successful against us as Barnes & Noble was against Amazon,” Hastings told investors in early 2004. “Until we are sure, however, we plan to watch them closely.”