Netflix:

Netflix began in the early 2000s as a small company based in Los Gatos, California. They aimed at getting rid of late fees by providing an online rental method where you would add a movie to your queue and it would arrive by mail a couple of days later. You could then keep this movie as long as you wanted and not be charged anything outside of the monthly subscription. The practice continues today with multiple subscription options that depends on how many movies you want in your house at once. There are countless titles available and you can make your online queue as long as you want. When you finish watching one movie, just send it back in the pre-paid envelope and the next movie in your list will be automatically mailed to you.

The decimation of late fees, coupled with having movies delivered to your house, should be enough to give video rental stores a run for their money. However, Netflix provides one more service that has sealed the coffin shut on the "be kind rewind" generation: instant streaming. Included in your subscription comes the access to Netflix's online database of thousands of movies. These movies can be watched from your computer at anytime, as many times as you want. You can even stop the movie, take a road trip to Toronto, sign in to your account at a computer in the hotel and keep watching the movie there. You are not even restricted to computers anymore, since most major game consoles and some Blu-Rays now offer Netflix streaming.

During the past ten years, society has found ways to streamline nearly everything we do. From friendships to shopping for clothes to, in this case, watching movies, the Internet has made sure information is always available fast and simple. However, few times in history has a single company impacted one medium as strongly as Netflix has the movie industry. As the future approaches it doesn't seem ludicrous to think that the physical way of owning movies might become obsolete. Instant streaming now even features entire TV series, so the idea of cable might become a thing of the past as well. If Netflix continues on this path, the entirety of visual media might one day be accessible through its servers. So, grab a cold one and settle into that comfy couch, there will always be something on.