When Netflix began in 1997, it wasn’t the streaming behemoth it is now. No one had created Stranger Things or Wednesday or Bridgerton. Netflix was the couch potato’s alternative to Blockbuster — instead of driving down to the store to rent a DVD, which would hopefully be in stock, you could pick it from Netflix’s library ahead of time and have it delivered directly to your doorstep.
“Those iconic red envelopes changed the way people watched shows and movies at home — and they paved the way for the shift to streaming,” Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos said. “To everyone who ever added a DVD to their queue or waited by the mailbox for a red envelope to arrive: thank you.”
For years, the streaming giant has allowed directors to edit their work retroactively. In 2020, mere hours after Juno star Ellen Page announced that she was now"Elliot" , Netflix went through and altered the credits on various TV shows, even changing Page’s name in the title credits to the first season of The Umbrella Academy, which Page starred in nearly two years before coming out as transgender.