Reed Hastings, co-founder, chairman, and co-chief executive officer of Netflix, arrives for the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S. July 6, 2021.
Brian Losness | Reuters
Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday he was slow to come around to advertising on the streaming platform because he was too focused on digital competition from Facebook and Google.
“I didn’t believe in the ad-supported tactic for us. I was wrong about that. Hulu proved you could do that at scale and offer customers lower prices. We did switch on that,” Hastings said at The New York Times’ Dealbook conference. “I wish we had flipped a few years earlier on that, but we’ll catch up.”
Netflix had for years resisted the idea of allowing advertising on its service. But after coming under pressure because of its slowing subscription growth, Hastings said in April that…
