Actually, the original success involved putting DVDs in mailboxes.
> I remember being astonished at watching a Netflix movie on my iPhone (when I was still an iPhone user) while riding a train in 2011'ish.
Right, but you're going to be equally astonished in 2017 if you don't get the same level of service from Prime Video, Hulu, HBO GO, YouTube Red, et. al. And in 2019 a YC company will offer a one-click media publishing company that will allow any random joe on the planet to publish a DRM-protected movie available through a world-wide CDN with a pay-per-view payment system.
In 2011 tech was a major differentiator, today not so much. Netflix is moving with the times, that's why they are offering original content instead of being content to provide a good platform to stream other people's IP.
> This answer is in the same category as "Actually, Google is an ads company". That is to say, it makes a plausible case but ultimately wrong.
https://qz.com/607378/were-live-charting-googles-first-alpha... (tl;dr: the overwhelming majority of google's revenue comes from ads)