Oct. 17, 2005
Given his fondness for movies, it's not surprising that Reed Hastings thinks about the future of home entertainment in terms that sound like they're drawn straight from "Star Wars." The story line, according to the founder of the DVDs-by-mail pioneer Netflix, goes something like this: as DVDs slowly give way to online movies, consumers will face a stark choice. Will they side with the "Forces of Control" or the "Forces of Freedom"? The Forces of Control are the cable and satellite companies, which offer 50 to 500 channels of content that's chosen by network programmers.
Opposing this bunch are the Forces of Freedom, a group of companies that includes Netflix, TiVo, Apple, AOL and Yahoo. Together the freedom fighters will offer something like 5 million channels via the Internet, giving consumers the ability to watch just about anything they'd like, whenever they'd like. "Instead of an electronic program guide that viewers scroll through with a remote control, the keyboard will be your remote control and your program guide will be Google or Yahoo," says Hastings.
It's no secret which team Hastings, 45, is betting on. He built his empire on the premise that people would rather have their rental movies delivered to their mailboxes than have to haul themselves to the video store, enduring the inconvenience and dreaded late fees along the way.
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