Netflix just won't chill. The streaming service reported better than expected first-quarter earnings on Monday.
"It's primarily driven by the quality," said Kyle Robertson, the founder and editor-in-chief of StartU, a digital publication covering start-ups. He said the streaming service's 7.4 million new subscribers in the first quarter were likely attracted by content more than the volume of Netflix's titles.
The Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has said the company will spend between $7.5 and $8 billion on original content this year as it prepares to do battle with Disney's new streaming service.
"They have competition coming from all quarters," said Paul Verna, principal analyst at eMarketer, said in an interview on Cheddar. "It's only a matter of time before Apple starts to seriously get into the streaming video world with a subscription service."
In recent news, Netflix has been battling an international feud with the Cannes Film Festival, resulting in the streaming platform pulling its movies from the festival. In the earnings note, Hastings explains a new rule that means a film competition at Cannes cannot be watched on Netflix in France for the next three years. Never wanting to do that to its international users, Netflix will continue to sit out until further notice.
Netflix also announced expectations for the second quarter, when it aims to add nearly 1 million domestic subscribers and more than 4 million new international users.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/netflix-wont-chill).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
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Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
