A couple weeks ago, people balked when Netflix announced its goal to create enough original content to fill half of its sizeable library, but, if the reports from streaming blog Exstreamist are true, that might not be quite as monumental a feat as we’re imagining. According to Exstreamist’s inside sources who worked at Netflix during the 2012 record-high peak, there were close to 11,000 movie and television titles available to stream, which is double the 5,302 titles that were available in September 2016. The site claims that the decline is connected to the subscription service opting to not renew its streaming rights of third-party properties and using its resources instead to pay for original content. In other words, you can’t spend $120 million for The Get Down and please everyone’s old-sitcom nostalgia binges at the same time. It’s a risk, but the critical acclaim connected to some of the series might just make it worth it. Besides, if Netflix maintains its current library, that could mean in the future we’re looking at 2,651 originals, which is probably more superhero adaptations, political dramas, and ’90s reboots than any one streamer could handle.
