Platforms, or technology-enabled business marketplaces, are transforming the way we think about business. For 200 years, businesses had been about creating large scale in various aspects and connecting them in a linear fashion: raw materials, parts and components, resources of production and transformation, distribution, etc., and using this large-scale structure to efficiently create and supply something of value to the customer.

The business of in-home video entertainment is undergoing massive transformation in production, distribution and industry structure. Tectonic changes have occurred in the last two decades, including multiple big media mergers, emergence and dominance of Netflix first as a content distributor and then as a content creator, and, conversely, launch of direct-to-consumer streaming services by major content creator firms. What core elements explain this turbulence, and what signals do they provide for the future of media and entertainment?