In the parlance of old-time show business, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) laid an egg this week. The streaming service’s first-quarter earnings report, with its ill news of a 200,000 drop in subscribers — the first decline since 2011 — was greeted with a wave of negativity not seen since the critics’ screening for “Heaven’s Gate.” Even worse, the company’s profitable revenue stream was denigrated for not meeting the consensus’ expectations.
Sadly, the company went into panic mode and hastily began slapping ill-fitting Band-Aids on the scars that its critics carved into its flesh — promises of cracking down on password sharing and hints at adding advertising to its presentations were thrown about like New Year’s confetti. Shareholders were mostly unimpressed and the stock tanked, while the financial news media had a field day with the company’s perceived wreckage.
