Netflix: the biggest rival to movies in the future? A pill that entertains you

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has been speaking about the future of Netflix and reckons movies will be rivalled by something altogether more pharmaceutical. 

Speaking at the WSJD Live, the Wall Street Journal’s annual digital-focused conference, Hastings said that movies and TV shows may be big business now but they will eventually go the way of books, noting long term "movies & TV shows will be like the opera & the novel... There will be substitutes."

These “substitutes” could come in the form of a pill, with the WSJ tweeting:

A pill that entertains you, eh? A thousand sweaty, hugging 3am clubbers may already believe that such a pill already exists but we think Hastings is on about a pill that will take you more on a trippy movie-like journey. 

Actually, we think there may already be a drug that does that too but Hastings must be talking about a drug that is a whole lot more, well, legal.

Thankfully, Hastings isn’t waiting for the drugs to kick in before making Netflix even better noting that "fundamentally we're about eliminating loneliness and boredom" and that Netflix is focused on making high-end content and not going down the “low-end” YouTube route. 

Anyone who has seen the Netflix-exclusive Adam Sandler movies may well disagree, but there is plenty of decent stuff on the site, just check out our *cough* plug *cough* extensive best-of lists.

Via The Verge

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.