“The four of us have been competing hard all this time, and now it’s like, ‘Wow, this internet thing really works,’” he said. Disney and Apple and AT&T are only now getting in the game.

“The tricky thing in this streaming war is Apple and Disney are not going to break out revenue,” he said. Unlike Netflix, Apple and Disney own several businesses, and sales figures for streaming will be mixed in with those from other divisions.

“The real measurement will be time,” Mr. Hastings said. “How do consumers vote with their evenings.” It’s worth noting that Netflix has been notoriously stingy with its viewership data and has doled out figures for only its original series and films. The company has said it plans to become more transparent with its ratings.

Netflix has won many evenings. The company’s 158 million subscribers, with 60 million in the United States, have spent thousands of hours bingeing on original hits such as “Stranger Things,” “Umbrella Academy” and “Bird Box.”

Mr. Hastings said that most of the streamers should win as people continue to cut the cord. “Linear TV is declining; that’s fueling the growth of subscribers,” he said. In other words, the battle isn’t against each other so much as it is about converting regular TV viewers into full-time streaming viewers.