In recent years, Netflix’s reputation as a streaming pioneer has been called into question. However, the company’s latest experiment with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) shows that it is still playing the digital disruption game. In May, the company put out nine NFTs on Opensea’s NFT marketplace. Each one showed a scene from the third season of its popular science fiction anthology series Love, Death, and Robots.
The series features Michael B. Jordan, Mackenzie Davis, Rosario Dawson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel McHale, Topher Grace, and Samira Wiley. It also adapts classic science fiction stories by Bruce Sterling, Harlan Ellison, John Scalzi, J. G. Ballard, and others. Netflix revealed that it had hidden QR codes to some of the scenes on billboards and social media without much fanfare other than a tweet and a small hint in the closing credits of the season’s last episode, so only the most dedicated fans took part in the original offering.
Netflix’s NFT event is more about gathering information about its viewers than about making money through blockchain.
Netflix probably won’t make much money from the promotion. It’s an unusual move that goes against the gold rush mentality that has dominated most of the NFT industry.
Even the most popular Love, Death, and Robots NFT, from the episode “Exit Strategies,” in which three robots look into what happened after people died, can be bought for 0.002 Eth, or $3.36.
But because of the blockchain promotion, which ends on September 24, there has been an unofficial rating of season three episodes, with sales showing which one people liked the most. Unintentionally, this has given the TV business a new way to figure out what a show’s real ratings are in the future.
