For the past decade, Netflix offered the same response every time it had a bad quarter: This is just a blip.
In 2015, it blamed a transition to chip-based credit cards. In 2016, it was media coverage of a price increase. In 2018, it was poor forecasting. All of these shortfalls were temporary annoyances, it said, and none would stop its steady march towards global supremacy.
Wall Street has given Netflix a lot of leeway over the years because the company has proven again and again that it knows what it’s doing. Those slowdowns were mere blips, as Netflix promised. But investors’ faith is about to be put to the test. Netflix is on pace for its slowest year since 2013, the same year “House of Cards” debuted and changed the trajectory of the company. Netflix was only available in a few dozen countries at the time.
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