Consumers have a bevy of new streaming options to choose from over the next year, and many investors in consumer discretionary stocks are worried about subscribers leaving Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX). Disney's (NYSE: DIS) 10 million sign-ups for Disney+ within 24 hours of launching the service earlier this month certainly resonated across the market. Netflix has only added about 10 million U.S. subscribers over the last two years.
But Netflix CEO Reed Hastings doesn't think subscriber numbers are the best way to judge success for the crop of new streaming services. Instead, he thinks it's important to look at how consumers are spending their time.
At the New York Times' DealBook conference earlier this month, Hastings said: