Consumerism, Innovation and the Future of Pediatric Primary Care
Netflix was founded in 1997 to allow consumers access to video content from home. By 2000, focused on second-tier films, Netflix developed a subscription service featuring unlimited, fixed-price rentals. That same year, Netflix approached Blockbuster, the dominant movie rental company at that time, first offering to become Blockbuster’s online retail arm and then to sell itself for $50 million. Both offers were declined. In 2008, Blockbuster declared that Netflix is “not even on the radar screen in terms of competition.”1 Failing to recognize Netflix’s ability to satisfy the customer, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010. In contrast, Netflix, now with more than 100 million subscribers, achieved dominance by betting on emerging technology for streaming video. What might this example teach us about the future of a very different service, pediatric primary care?