Netflix chief Reed Hastings on Spain launch: ‘Piracy created a public used to viewing content on the internet’
Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, has said that TV piracy helped acclimatise consumers to streaming and online viewing.
Speaking in an interview with El Mundo on the eve of Netflix Spain’s launch, Hastings commented that piracy helped change TV consumption habits which precipitated the rise of the streaming giant.
Hastings said: “Well, you can call it a problem, but the truth is that [piracy] has also created a public used to viewing content on the internet, we offer a simpler and immediate alternative to finding a torrent.
"In Holland we had a similar situation. It was a country with a high rate of piracy. And the same thing happened in Canada.”
He concluded: “In both we are a successful service. We can think of this as the bottled water business. Tap water can be drunk and is free, but there is still a public that demands bottled water."
The company launches in the region at the price of €8 per month, a lower than standard price for what Netflix has admitted is a "smaller catalogue".