Something strange is happening in the world of technology and media: Netflix is becoming the incumbent, and the upstart challengers are companies that have been around for nearly a century.

Disney, AT&T's WarnerMedia, and Comcast's NBCUniversal are all launching direct-to-consumer streaming services by the first quarter of 2020. And they're all coming after Netflix.

Sure, there will be enough consumer dollars to go around for Netflix to keep its massive subscriber base, 155 million globally, growing. But there's little doubt that part of the motivation of legacy media companies embracing subscription streaming services is to capture some of Netflix's valuation — or bring CEO Reed Hastings' behemoth back down to earth.

That's why WarnerMedia announced Tuesday it is pulling "Friends" off Netflix in 2020 when it debuts its service, which will be called HBO Max. The WarnerMedia streaming service will have exclusive rights to the hit sitcom. AT&T is paying $85 million per year for the U.S. rights for five years, according to a person familiar with the matter. Netflix was paying $80 million for global rights to the show and wasn't in a position to re-bid, given WarnerMedia's contractual options around streaming rights for the show, the person said. The Wall Street Journal first reported how much WarnerMedia would pay for "Friends."

Netflix has been preparing to lose "Friends," just as it realized it may lose "The Office" to NBCUniversal's streaming service, which will happen in 2021, and has been spending billions on new original content exclusive to the service to keep customers satisfied.

But losing both "Friends" and "The Office" is significant to the potential health of the streaming service moving forward. The two series are the two most-watched shows on all of Netflix, according to research firm Jumpshot.

WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey's goal is to get 70 million subscribers to sign up for HBO Max. That's double the number of U.S. subscribers for HBO. For years, Wall Street has valued Netflix on its subscriber growth rather than its profits. Legacy media companies have rued this dichotomy, frustrated that investors value old media differently from Netflix, which has grown from a start-up to a company with a $175 billion enterprise value.