I thought FAANG was originally shorthand for companies that could pay far above median via RSUs since their stock prices were expected to skyrocket, with little downside, so the RSUs were as good as cash. And why other companies couldn't offer comparable pay. And nowadays it still refers to companies whose publicly trade stock prices continue to grow so much that it makes the stock portion of the compensation very lucrative, which include Microsoft.
>And Netflix's product on the face of it is certainly what we would consider a feature for most big software companies
Netflix's product is the opposite of a feature. A feature is reproducible, which Netflix's media is not, and they are the only place to get it.
> I thought FAANG was originally shorthand for companies that could pay far above median
It's not really related to compensation even if those companies pay well. The short history is that FANG was coined by Jim Cramer (he has a TV show where he talks about stocks) around 7 or 8 years ago to mean Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google. He just thought those were good stocks to invest in at the time but the term caught on and started being used in different contexts, Apple was added as the second A to make FAANG and now it's roughly just a synonym for a big tech company depending on the context.
This also explains why Netflix is represented in the acronym but much bigger companies like Microsoft aren't.
> Netflix's product is the opposite of a feature. A feature is reproducible, which Netflix's media is not, and they are the only place to get it.
Apple, Google and Microsoft have shown they want to compete directly in streamed video market (and similarly the online music market.)
They might not have successfully competed against Netflix yet, but I have no reason to believe that one of them couldn’t come up with a better product with better platform integration, and Netflix becomes another Hulu in the middle runners.
The point is if Netflix creates media that people want to consume, they have to go to Netflix to get it (legally).
If Dropbox creates software that performs a task, it can be copied (to a sufficient degree) by Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon and people can get it there.
> Netflix's product is the opposite of a feature. A feature is reproducible, which Netflix's media is not, and they are the only place to get it.
I completely disagree. Netflix creates original content, but so do all (most?) of the other competing streaming platforms. And they all compete for licenses to third-party content. Heck, notable third-party content often makes headlines for moving from one streaming service to another when the contracts expire.
>And Netflix's product on the face of it is certainly what we would consider a feature for most big software companies
Netflix's product is the opposite of a feature. A feature is reproducible, which Netflix's media is not, and they are the only place to get it.