Did you watch that Netflix earnings call on Tuesday? You’d think co-C.E.O.s Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos had slayed the villain, won the regatta, kissed the girl—or whatever happens at the end of their Russo brothers movies. (I never finish them.) Ostensibly a sober quarterly financial update, this was a full-on victory lap, complete with overly optimistic declarations—“Well, thank God we’re done with shrinking quarters,” announced a grinning Hastings, apparently able to see the future—and a shareholder letter filled with attacks on the company’s rivals, both implicit and explicit.  

Yes, Netflix added 2.4 million subscribers, way above the 1 million forecasted and a return to growth after six months of sub losses. That’s 223 million members worldwide, back on top of Disney’s 221 million, which includes overlap among Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. (Disney’s coming price hike for ad-free Disney+ will likely challenge those sub numbers while, it hopes, increasing revenue.) And yes, a lot of people are watching the Dahmer gruesomeness, and the bloated Stranger Things episodes that were held for this quarter to juice subs, and even whatever was happening in The Gray Man. (Again, I didn’t finish it.)