Netflix: Narrative vs. the Numbers
Netflix: The Distribution Ecosystem
A companion visual to the case note "Narrative vs. the Numbers" (§5). The bear thesis assumes the connected-TV aggregation layer (Roku & co.) is a chokepoint that can tax and disintermediate Netflix. The data says otherwise. Not investment advice.
"Is Roku the only channel? Isn't Netflix on the web and on the TVs?"
Correct — and that question is the crux. Channel power only bites when the channel is a chokepoint. Netflix has many paths to the viewer, a large share of them direct (no toll). No single aggregator controls the door.
1 · How Netflix reaches the viewer
▶
Direct — Netflix owns the relationship & billing
Web netflix.comno toll
Netflix app + remote button (pre-installed ~everywhere)no toll
Mobile — direct web billing since Dec 2018no app-store cut
Via aggregator — partial toll (home-screen discovery + ad-inventory share)
Rokupartial
Amazon Fire TVpartial
Google TVpartial
Apple tvOSpartial
Samsung / LGpartial
consolespartial
…and this layer is itself fragmented — see §2. The toll falls only on the subset of subs that sign up through a store, not the base.
▶
VIEWER
2 · The aggregation layer is fragmented (US connected-TV OS share)
Roku 34%
Samsung 22%
Fire 12%
Vizio 12%
Other ~20%
Source: US OS share, Q1 2025 `[~]`. Globally even more split — Android TV ~46%, 10+ OSes, regional players (e.g. India's JioTele). No single chokepoint exists, especially outside the US.
3 · Reach: one door of many (active reach, not exclusivity)
Netflix subs (global)
~330M
Roku accounts (US-skewed)
~90M
Roku — the single largest aggregator — touches under a third of Netflix's base, and mostly in one country. (Bars compare reach scale; Roku users are a doorway, not exclusive Netflix customers.)
Takeaway. The toll layer is real but diffuse and partly bypassed. Netflix's web + branded-app + remote-button + direct-billing footprint means no aggregator is a chokepoint for the core subscription — so Porter's "channel power" re-scopes to where it does bite: the ad / CTV-monetization layer (OS inventory + ACR data + measurement — the bounded ad lever) and a future AI-agent discovery layer that sits above the web too (the genuine forward tail). It is not a tax on today's diversified, direct subscriber base.