Netflix is now an inseparable part of our culture, but few people know the dirty laundry
behind the cheerful red and white logo: shady practices, secret warehouses, and an origin
story based on lies.
Here are some secrets Netflix might not want you to know...
Yo-ho-ho
We've all experienced the most crushing disappointment of modern society: after getting all comfortable
on the couch with a nice cup of tea or a bottle of beer, we open up Netflix only to find the
movie we want to watch … isn't streaming.
It's the worst!
Luckily, there's a simple solution: piracy.
"You cheated?"
"Pirate."
Oh, that doesn't mean that you should download pirated videos yourself.
Rather, Netflix actually monitors piracy sites to see what the most popular stolen content
is, so they know which shows and movies they should add to their service later.
That's...actually pretty smart.
And also pretty sketchy.
This also explains why the content on Netflix includes so many seemingly random movies and
TV shows.
Most likely, that content is hot on pirating sites, and Netflix is trying to get a piece
of the action.
It's in an ethical grey area...but nobody really cares, as long as they constantly get
rad new content, right?
Secret safehouses
In a shocking turn of events, Netflix still does DVD rentals.
Surprising, right?
Even in this age of streaming video services, the DVD rentals still go strong.
But how do they get the DVDs shipping so fast?
Well, it turns out Netflix has a secret network of nearly sixty warehouses across the country,
each packed to the ceiling with discs.
It sounds like movie-fan paradise, but good luck ever finding them.
Not only are these warehouses unmarked, but the delivery vans that bring the discs to
and from the warehouses are also unmarked, and employees even have to sign confidentiality
agreements to never reveal the location of these secret warehouses.
Frankly, you might have an easier time finding the warehouse holding the Ark of the Covenant.
They'll throttle you
Remember when Netflix came under fire for intentionally slowing down streaming rates
for certain wireless customers?
In that case, they claimed it was to protect the viewers from exceeding their data limits
and racking up big fees.
But there's no such excuse to explain why Netflix purposefully ships DVDs slower — to
people who use the service more.
Basically, Netflix doesn't want to pay the costs of constantly shipping discs from those
secret warehouses to people who use the service a lot.
So in order to balance out their operating costs, they intentionally delay shipping discs
to frequent users.
The practice is called throttling, and you can probably see why.
After all, after waiting a month for your copy of Eat, Pray, Love to arrive, you'll
probably want to strangle someone.
The blind leading the dumb
Enjoying TV and movies as a blind person is difficult, which is why most of them have
a special audio track that narrates the action when there's no dialogue.
Netflix is notorious for omitting this, and infuriating blind customers.
But that outrage reached a fever pitch when Netflix left the feature out of its original
series Daredevil, which of course, stars a blind superhero.
Netflix responded to the controversy by promising to add blind accessibility to the show, which
they eventually did months later, all the while blaming Marvel Studios for not including
it in the first place.
It just goes to show that with great power comes very little responsibility.
The forgotten man
Ask Netflix CEO Reed Hastings how he came up with the idea of Netflix, and he'll tell
you a heartwarming story about how he was once hit with a $40 late fee on a rental of
Apollo 13 and came up with the idea of Netflix to protect democracy from those fascists at
Blockbuster.
"Houston, we have a problem."
Just one problem: according to reports, Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph says that Hastings
just totally made the story up as a marketing tool to explain to investors why the company
was a good idea.
In reality, Randolph and Hastings set out to emulate Amazon.com and tested a number
of potential products to build their business around, before settling on DVDs.
Of course, you've probably never heard of Randolph either, because he's been carefully
scrubbed out of the Netflix story in favor of this idea of Hastings as a visionary creator.
But Randolph was actually the company's first CEO, running Netflix for four years while
Hastings was off attending grad school.
Guy should probably at least get a thank you card instead of the brushoff, you know?
It will literally kill you
Everyone loves binge-watching shows on Netflix.
One problem: it'll kill you.
Studies show that binge-watching can increase chances of mental health issues, causing an
addiction to form and making viewers antisocial.
And it's not just affecting our brains.
Binge-watching also wrecks our bodies, causing an increased risk of cancer and chronic diseases
that comes from a sedentary Netflix lifestyle.
Plus, a Dutch study discovered that men who watched five or more hours of TV daily had
29 percent lower sperm concentration, and 34 percent lower sperm count.
They weren't able to figure out why, but it might have to do with "throttling."
The best option is to either watch your shows in smaller doses, or watch shorter shows to
begin with.
So next time you're tempted to spend all day on the couch with Netflix, take our advice
and just binge watch Grunge YouTube videos instead.
Your body and mind will thank us!
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