To think Netflix started off as a DVD mail order business, a bright idea catalyzed in co-founder Reed Hastings’ mind after apparently amassing a $40 late fine at the video store from misplacing Apollo 13.

As we pointed out here not so long ago, Americans watch a lot of TV, but that’s charted water. It’s how we watch TV that is changing, with the younger crowd, the streaming millennials, losing their faith in “traditional TV.” As a whole, we commanders of the couch are shifting toward the stream.

We are seeing constant signals that point to Netflix looking at a monopoly on our viewing entertainment. Netflix is now streaming Indian comedies as Bollywood is a huge market, and it got into bed with Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar. Netflix, the frenemy of Hollywood, is stationed to be the great usurper of the entertainment status quo.

As was reported here, Netflix’s billions are disrupting Hollywood hegemony, and from House of Cards, Netflix first original series, we are about to see a great influx of more original content. HBO, you should be worried, says Vanity Fair, upon yesterday’s news that Netflix plans to make half of its content original over the next few years.

Billions of ideas

It’s reported that in 2016 alone Netflix will air 600 hours of original content, up from 450 hours in 2015. Chief Financial Officer David Wells was reported as saying Netflix is now one third of the way to having half of its content original. “We don’t necessarily have to have home runs,” Wells said in an interview. “We can also live with singles, doubles and triples especially commensurate with their cost.”

Netflix is expanding its target, looking for the “everyman” consumer, although Wells says the company has a “way to go” in covering all genres. Netflix has a budget that allows some amount of daring, and also testing out the water. From its estimated $6 billion content budget. huge amounts will be paid to star actors such as Brad Pitt and Will Smith for films for which Netflix outbid Hollywood studios.

Traditional television is not dead, but it’s in the midst of an interesting metamorphosis. As this report here states, “Legacy TV companies are recognizing these shifts and beginning to pivot their business models to keep pace with the changes. They are launching branded apps and sites to move their programming beyond the TV glass, distributing on social platforms to reach massive, young audiences, and forming partnerships with digital media brands to create new content.”

That might be true, but it seems right now Netflix is way ahead of the game, sailing toward a glorious sunset while TV weathers the storm.

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