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Netflix’s New Numbers Game

Today’s earnings report marked a shift in how the dominant streamer measures its growth—from subscription numbers to monetization. But it also heralds the next phase of the Hollywood content wars, in which Netflix competes with social video platforms more than streamers.

Ted Sarandos
Just like when Netflix first started releasing its weekly top 10 and then its biannual “What We Watched” reports, there is a certain smug flex in this public abandonment of its own most-favored metric. Photo: Greg Doherty/Getty Images for Netflix
Julia Alexander
April 17, 2025

Netflix created the premium streaming video industry, and the company has never been shy about dictating its own rules of engagement: binge-watching, the ad-free experience, and super-sized creator deals, among other innovations. Along the way, Netflix also defined the parameters of success in streaming. Thanks to its sky-high stock price, the rest of Hollywood obsessed over subscriber numbers, which led competitors like Disney+, Peacock, and Paramount+ to offer artificially low prices or cut deals with high-churn partners to goose stats. They were just trying to keep up with Netflix.