This nails why NFLX's moat is so misunderstood. People think its about having more data but realy its about seing what cable and theaters never could. The viewing behavor insights they built from day one gave them an edge that tradiional media literaly cant replicate even with masive budgets.
Exactly! And here's what people miss: Netflix didn't just have one observation advantage that eroded. They keep finding new ones.
First it was streaming vs. cable (binge-watching behavior). Then it was global content consumption - they saw that a Korean survival drama could dominate globally while Hollywood studios were still making "international versions" of American shows.
Now they're observing something nobody else can: what happens when you mix completely unrelated cultural elements. "K-Pop Demon Hunters" exists because Netflix has watched thousands of experiments showing that weird genre mashups + unexpected cultural combinations work in ways traditional studios never predicted.
Think about it: A Hollywood studio would never greenlight "Korean zombie period drama" (Kingdom) because their data comes from focus groups and historical box office. Netflix greenlit it because they'd already observed that their viewers consume content completely differently than theater audiences. They'd seen Squid Game break every rule about what "international content" should look like.
This is the Amazon playbook from your article. Amazon didn't rest on "we observed digital shopping behavior." They kept repositioning: Prime behavior, then AWS adoption patterns, then Alexa usage. Each time finding a new behavioral context competitors couldn't observe yet.
Netflix is doing the same. They're not defending their original moat - they're continuously finding new behavioral contexts where they can observe unique patterns before anyone else even knows to look.
That's the real moat: not having observed unique behavior once, but being positioned to keep observing NEW unique behaviors as they emerge.
This nails why NFLX's moat is so misunderstood. People think its about having more data but realy its about seing what cable and theaters never could. The viewing behavor insights they built from day one gave them an edge that tradiional media literaly cant replicate even with masive budgets.
Exactly! And here's what people miss: Netflix didn't just have one observation advantage that eroded. They keep finding new ones.
First it was streaming vs. cable (binge-watching behavior). Then it was global content consumption - they saw that a Korean survival drama could dominate globally while Hollywood studios were still making "international versions" of American shows.
Now they're observing something nobody else can: what happens when you mix completely unrelated cultural elements. "K-Pop Demon Hunters" exists because Netflix has watched thousands of experiments showing that weird genre mashups + unexpected cultural combinations work in ways traditional studios never predicted.
Think about it: A Hollywood studio would never greenlight "Korean zombie period drama" (Kingdom) because their data comes from focus groups and historical box office. Netflix greenlit it because they'd already observed that their viewers consume content completely differently than theater audiences. They'd seen Squid Game break every rule about what "international content" should look like.
This is the Amazon playbook from your article. Amazon didn't rest on "we observed digital shopping behavior." They kept repositioning: Prime behavior, then AWS adoption patterns, then Alexa usage. Each time finding a new behavioral context competitors couldn't observe yet.
Netflix is doing the same. They're not defending their original moat - they're continuously finding new behavioral contexts where they can observe unique patterns before anyone else even knows to look.
That's the real moat: not having observed unique behavior once, but being positioned to keep observing NEW unique behaviors as they emerge.