If it’s not the company motto yet, it should be: Never count Netflix out. On Wednesday, the streaming giant beat Wall Street projections by reporting a gain of nearly 9 million new subscribers worldwide and $8.5 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2023, a nearly 8 percent increase year-over-year. While that might all sound like a bunch of finance bro brouhaha, it’s also remarkable considering the very tumultuous three years the company—and Hollywood—has had.
Consider the company’s crackdown on password sharing. The long–planned killjoy campaign rolled out in the US and UK in May 2023. It came on the heels of a topsy-turvy time for streaming, when Netflix