Thank you, Colin for reading and for your well-considered points. I think there are a number of reasons why a mark should evolve. Especially if the mark doesn't represent the strategy of the company any longer. So to me, the evolution of the Netflix mark signaled the shift of where the brand was going (content aggregator -> content creator and the need to mark "cover art" in the UI to claim ownerhip at first) and, to your point, the new environment in which was operating (more modern, streaming, small screens, etc.)

Personally, that original logo was a royal PITA to try and make work at small sizes and on TVs/phones.

That BI article is a somewhat embarrassing blast from the past. Basically, every home page from 2001 - 2012 was my doing. Ugly designs, to be sure, but it converted well. I probably should write a short article about each one of those screen grabs to give them context. Because looking at them now...good lord.