>Shouldn't dividends make up for any slowdown in growth? If I buy a share in Netflix and instead of the share price rising I get instead a dividend payment, I'd be fine with that, right?Not really. To riff on the old saying, "money doesn't grow on trees", we can also say "dividends don't grow on trees."
Where do dividends come from? From profits. But where do profits come from? In accounting lingo, we say profits come from "revenue minus costs" but to restate that in human action terms, we notice that profits come from Company X's purposeful activities that are desired by customers that choose to spend money with Company X instead of Company Y. Therefore, dividends are not guaranteed and in the hyper-competitive business sector Netflix operates, it requires growth to pay them.
If we mentally substitute "Blockbuster Inc" for "Netflix" in your dividend suggestion: "Can't shareholders just be happy with Blockbuster paying dividends instead of worrying about growth?"
... we'll see the "dividends instead of growth" won't work. In 2002, Blockbuster started losing money to upstart Netflix. If you look at Blockbusters historical stock prices[1], you'll see they started falling towards $0 because of repeated annual losses. Netflix was growing and Blockbuster was not. With accounting losses, Blockbuster has no profits and thus, no dividends to pay. Blockbuster eventually went bankrupt. Blockbuster did try to "grow" but it wasn't enough. No only do you have to grow as part of business strategy, you have to grow correctly with smart bets.
With Blockbuster as a case study, we can see that suggesting "Why can't Netflix shareholders be happy with dividends instead of growing?" -- will not work. Netflix's dividends/profits will evaporate if they don't grow to respond to Amazon Prime Video, HBO streaming, Disney streaming, Apple TV, etc. Yes, an "old-economy" business like railroads with little competition can pay dividends but Netflix is not that type of company. All the video streaming businesses are still furiously competing for consumers' discretionary entertainment budget. To not grow is to die because your customers leave for other more attractive video offerings.
E.g. in 2002, Netflix went public and had $272 million in revenue[2]. If Netflix adopted the "we don't believe in growth" and just simply collected the same $272 million every year until today, they would not have been able to offer $100 million to buy House of Cards in 2011. This means HBO or Amazon would have outbid them making Netflix less attractive for new memberships or existing members to renew. In 2011, Netflix could afford paying $100 million because 2010 revenue already exceeded $2 billion. Because they grew.
Ok, so let's say we hypothetically rule out expensive bidding wars to license content. You still need growth instead of a flatline revenue of $272 million for the next 18 years. Your employees want their salaries to grow with merit increases, bonuses, etc -- because their apartment rents, food costs, car insurance, etc go up. The existing content partners will want increased payments to license their shows when contract renewal comes up. The rent of office space leases, electricity, health insurance, etc all go up. Increasing salaries, license costs, fixed overhead costs, etc will subtract more and more from that "no-growth-just-the-same-$272 million-revenue-every-year". There will eventually be no profits left over to pay dividends.
In other words... the problem with a "no growth ideology" is that the world out there may not want to cooperate with you! They have their own agendas.
[1] https://external-preview.redd.it/Hfg1XQCVUlO2Og1_d9iSi0Ovekj...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix#Membership_fee,_Blockb...
