Just to nitpick your nitpick, that Netflix had little in common with the current Netflix. In fact, it supports my story because Netflix was a DVD rental service at the time.
Eg IMO it's fair to say that Motorola phones were there before Nokia. It's a true statement unless you mean Nokia, the well known Finnish manufacturer of bike tyres, rubber boots and television sets.
I'd never have guessed that. Netflix must have been around for quite a while before it became a big thing.
This was circulating on Twitter this week:
https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/947909247836319744
Here's how old these companies will be turning in 2018:
Snapchat: 7 years
Uber: 9 years
Twitter: 12 years
Facebook: 14 years
Tesla: 15 years
Google: 20 years
Netflix: 21 years
Amazon: 24 years
Apple: 42 years
Intel: 50 years
HP: 79 years
Disney: 95 years
IBM: 107 years
Amazon and Google I knew had been around since the late 90s as I used both of them fairly early on. I still have a couple of coffee cups I got as "Christmas presents" from Amazon in early years as thanks for being a customer.
Facebook I started with while it still required a school address.
It does look though as if I started using Netflix in late 2001. So not that much later.
I remember having a Netflix DVD subscription when I was still using Yahoo search and getting my munchies from Kozmo.com. Funny thing, only in the last few years have new services begun to match the convenience of the original Kozmo. It was a sad, sad day when they burned through their last VC dollar. :)
Just a nitpick, but this was not before Netflix; I remember this vividly because I was called to a friend's house to troubleshoot their problems with Netflix DVDs and it was because their DVD player had been purchased off ebay for cheap and was region-locked.
The super-cheap DVD rentals offered by Netflix were really game-changing for people who were interested in DVD quality but couldn't justify the cost of purchase/rental in my area.