Netflix spent years proving that streaming could kill cable.
Now Wall Street is worried that Netflix is trying to become cable.
That’s a pretty wild moment where everything is at its peak.
Netflix built its empire by doing one ridiculously easy thing: open the app and find something you actually want to watch.
Now it’s expanding into live TV, games, podcasts, reality shows, and other formats, while some analysts question whether the core product is losing a bit of what made it special.
Wells Fargo just cut its rating, pointing to a decline in viewer engagement and a lack of enough original programming.
Its estimate is that viewing in the first half of 2026 fell by 8% compared with the same period in 2023.
And investors definitely noticed.
Netflix’s stock is down 40% over the last year, according to the chart I’m sharing.
That doesn’t mean Netflix suddenly turned into a bad business.
But it does raise an interesting question.
Netflix beat cable by replacing it with something simpler.
Now it has to be careful not to spend the next decade rebuilding cable inside the Netflix app. $NFLX
Now Wall Street is worried that Netflix is trying to become cable.
That’s a pretty wild moment where everything is at its peak.
Netflix built its empire by doing one ridiculously easy thing: open the app and find something you actually want to watch.
Now it’s expanding into live TV, games, podcasts, reality shows, and other formats, while some analysts question whether the core product is losing a bit of what made it special.
Wells Fargo just cut its rating, pointing to a decline in viewer engagement and a lack of enough original programming.
Its estimate is that viewing in the first half of 2026 fell by 8% compared with the same period in 2023.
And investors definitely noticed.
Netflix’s stock is down 40% over the last year, according to the chart I’m sharing.
That doesn’t mean Netflix suddenly turned into a bad business.
But it does raise an interesting question.
Netflix beat cable by replacing it with something simpler.
Now it has to be careful not to spend the next decade rebuilding cable inside the Netflix app. $NFLX
