[HN Gopher] Netflix's Big Power Clash and Rivalries Behind the C...
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Netflix's Big Power Clash and Rivalries Behind the Crash
Author : gmays
Score : 64 points
Date : 2022-05-05 15:32 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
| avl999 wrote:
| One thing I appreciate Netflix for is atleast they are willing to
| do the bare minimum and give me 720p on Linux. I am also an
| Amazon Prime subscriber but Amazon is literally forcing me to
| pirate their shows because they refuse to serve more than 480p on
| Linux. Was trying to watch Jack Reacher last weekend and the
| quality was so bad that it was probably 360p, gave up after 3
| episodes and ended up torrenting the season, which is a shame
| because I want to support shows I watch so they get more seasons.
|
| In 2021 streamers should be supporting atleast 1080p for Linux
| but if they can't I can live with 720p like Netflix does, but
| serving 480p is just disrespectful and looks awful on any decent
| size modern monitor.
| jra_samba wrote:
| Of course the irritating thing is that _all_ of their consumer
| devices are internally Linux as well, including the FireTV 's
| that happily stream Amazon Prime in 4K.
|
| So it isn't like they can't do it, just won't.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Apple should buy Netflix and combined they should focus on only
| few, extremely high quality shows.
| runevault wrote:
| We need more companies not less. This is an awful idea. Frankly
| I wish we'd see what happened theaters back in the day happen
| and not allowing creators to be their own distributors. Yes
| Netflix would have to stop creating content, but it would at
| least somewhat mitigate this current world where everyone
| creates their own streaming service.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Apple doesn't need to buy Netflix to do this, they're already
| starting to do it.
| ghaff wrote:
| Why would Apple buy Netflix to do a few high quality shows?
| That's pretty much (to a degree) the strategy Apple is already
| following.
| brimble wrote:
| What _should_ happen, if we 're doing "shoulds", is that it
| shouldn't be permitted for one company to own both distribution
| and production, nor for such companies to create long-term
| exclusivity agreements with one another.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >that it shouldn't be permitted ...
|
| In other words, we want as many middlemen as possible in the
| chain?
| brimble wrote:
| I think it's a good idea to mitigate the downsides of the
| monopoly granted by copyright, when possible. We saw
| similar problems with studio ownership of movie theaters,
| and solved that by not letting studios own movie theaters
| (via an antitrust suit). That's only very recently, and in
| what may be the twilight of the movie theater itself,
| changed.
|
| In the current environment, I suspect we'll see (are
| already seeing, to some extent) history repeat itself, but
| not do anything about it this time, because we're so
| skittish of regulating markets now.
|
| I don't think you should _have to_ own an extensive catalog
| of content to launch a streaming service. Nor that you
| should effectively _have to_ grovel for the patronage of
| one of a handful of integrated production+distribution mega
| corporations to undertake production of new media. But that
| 's rapidly where the market's heading, and I don't see any
| mechanism to change that course short of anti-trust action.
|
| There are, as usual, some benefits to the rents the current
| monopolistic system produces (extra cash sloshing around to
| throw at projects, for example--extra R&D money is a
| typical benefit monopolies produce, and in this case,
| because the monopolies are on particular content rather
| than on all content [so far--Disney's getting alarmingly
| close], there remain incentives to actually _spend_ that
| money on, if you will, R &D, or the closest thing to it in
| media production) but at the cost reduced competition on
| cost & quality, and of making it much harder to _enter_ the
| market, for new players.
| bin_bash wrote:
| it seems to me this market has loads of competition without
| silly regulation like this getting in the way
| bawolff wrote:
| In certain ways yes, in certain ways no. The monopoly
| provided by copyright does really hinder effective
| competition. Requiring non-discriminatory licensing would
| radically change the competitive landscape in this space.
| echelon wrote:
| [edit: yeah, my argument went on a tangent and didn't
| return back to point. Removed to not distract from the
| discussion.]
| RussianCow wrote:
| I think you may have posted this in the wrong thread.
| ss108 wrote:
| Interestingly, competition is worse for consumers in some
| respects here. It's resulting in fragmentation of the
| market such that people are too many services for 1-2 shows
| each
| kaashif wrote:
| > competition is worse for consumers in some respects
| here
|
| The implicit assumption here is that without competition,
| we'd have all (or most) of the same shows, just on a
| single service.
|
| I don't think that's true. I think competition between
| streaming services largely on the basis of original
| content has produced a lot of good shows that we wouldn't
| have seen otherwise. It seems to me like there's a lot
| more variety in things to watch these days, and it's not
| like I have to pay for every streaming service every
| month...
|
| Would all of the Star Wars content on Disney+ even have
| been made if Disney couldn't put it on Disney+, for
| example? Netflix has started and cancelled a ton of
| original series, but would they have even been tried at
| all back when cable TV was king? I don't know, maybe
| there are some statistics on the variety of TV shows
| being watched and I'm wrong, but I can't find them.
| brimble wrote:
| A shift in the competitive landscape might encourage
| distributors to integrate better with aggregators or
| meta-interfaces of various sorts. Or directly with one
| another, in some fashion.
|
| > Would all of the Star Wars content on Disney+ even have
| been made if Disney couldn't put it on Disney+, for
| example?
|
| I think the strongest argument in favor of the current
| arrangement is that monopolies yield rents, which
| (might!) mean more money for production. However, I think
| in a world where _no_ production companies could own
| streaming platforms, production companies would
| probably... you know, still produce lots of content,
| since selling content would be their main way of making
| money, and you can 't sell what you don't have.
|
| More importantly than whether Disney would still be OK, I
| think it would make it easier for indies and startups to
| participate in the market.
| brimble wrote:
| Exactly that. I want to see more competition on price,
| features, and quality, and less on content availability.
|
| It'd also make it easier to enter both parts of that
| market, as a production company or a distributor, which
| is currently something that only a company with an
| enormous pile of cash and/or ownership of an existing
| large catalog of material, can realistically do.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| There's vastly more high-quality television being
| produced than any other time in history. From my
| perspective, subscribing to one of the major services
| gives me a better experience than cable TV ever did, at a
| much lower cost. If I run out of stuff to watch I can
| always switch to another.
| zbuf wrote:
| No need to mandate it, Netflix should have realised the end
| game of competing with their own suppliers.
| bradstewart wrote:
| They did realize it. The end game was that their suppliers
| would stop supplying to take more profit for themselves.
|
| So they the only thing they could and started producing
| content.
| usrn wrote:
| I really think services like YouTube are going to win out.
| For every hour of video I've watched on Netflix or Hulu I've
| probably watched 40 on Youtube. The variety of content there
| is absolutely incredible and so much of it is very deep
| educational content.
| brimble wrote:
| I think people are watching a lot more video in general.
| There are multiple generations, at this point, that mostly
| wouldn't pay for cable or even bother with rabbit ears even
| if TV & movie streaming services didn't exist, but _do_ pay
| for a streaming service or three. I don 't think YouTube's
| going to beat that entire market, unless they shift tactics
| pretty substantially. I think they _expanded_ the market,
| though, grabbing almost all of that new territory for
| themselves in the process (at least until TikTok came
| along)
| InitialLastName wrote:
| > I think people are watching a lot more video in general
|
| My parents, their parents, and many of their peers have
| TVs on in the background during virtually every waking
| moment they spend at home, and have done so since at
| least the 90s.
|
| People are watching video differently, but I'm not sure
| it's "a lot more".
| skrbjc wrote:
| My parents and my in-laws (all in their 70s) do this,
| too, and I'm astounded by it. The TV is just on and
| playing in the background all the time, even when we
| visit and are sitting down and talking. It's not
| enjoyable to me.
|
| Come to think of it, my wife often does this as well
| (she's in her 30s). She'll put something on and then do
| something completely different, just the other day I came
| into the room to find her with netflix running on screen,
| a youtube video playing on another screen and her staring
| at her phone looking at something else.
|
| But I find myself, if I'm going to watch something, sit
| down and focus on it completely, to the point that I
| often pause and rewind if I didn't quite catch the
| phrasing of something.
|
| I guess it's just that certain people don't mind passive
| viewing and can have a lot more inputs without being
| bothered by it.
| lnsru wrote:
| I hate YouTube for their recommendation system. I watch few
| things and then get million recommendations of the same
| thing by different author. I don't want that, I want to see
| other topics and must actively search for them.
| usrn wrote:
| I exclusively use YouTube in private mode to avoid the
| pigeonholing.
| brnt wrote:
| I absolutely detest YouTube and the only reason I sometimes
| use an Invidious instance to access it is that people
| basically don't put video anywhere else anymore.
| izacus wrote:
| Why would you want even more consolidation? The other content
| owners (Disney, WB, etc.) have already pulled all their content
| from 3rd parties (including Netflix) to destroy competition.
| Why is there so many people on HN that want less market
| competition and cheer when corporations consolidate?
| sliken wrote:
| Because people want to watch the leading shows in their area
| of interest and not have to pay 10+ services $10-$20 a month.
|
| As it gets increasingly hard/expensive, not to mention the
| bickering between services and platforms and services and
| markets to watch them on, customers are resorting to piracy
| as a way to get the content they want.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Agree with this sentiment, but if they consolidate, the
| price may go from $10-20/month to $20-40/month. And then we
| are back to cable.
| wombatpm wrote:
| But without the 50 shopping channels
| mhitza wrote:
| All these streaming companies battle for long term user
| acquisition, thus perpetual $10/month subscription per
| service for X providers is definitely a no-go long term.
|
| I think a middle ground would be shareware-like pay-per-
| view type model. Are you creating a new series? Make the
| first episode freely watchable, and then don't price
| excessively the entire season.
|
| As a consumer would make sense for me to pay 5$ for a
| season of show X on Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max/etc. But
| allow me to watch the thing I payed for perpetually in the
| future, as long as the show is still on the platform. And
| when I'm looking for something new to pay for, allow me to
| see the first episode of existing shows for free.
|
| Would that work for all consumers? I don't know, most
| people I know with streaming subscriptions, barely actively
| watch shows and very often those are standins for
| background noise.
| sliken wrote:
| I was hoping for something like $50 a month and pay the
| creators accordingly. If I spend 10% of my viewing hours
| watching a particular series then the creator+provide can
| split the $5.
|
| I wish the internet ads worked the same way. I'd happily
| pay any website 2x whatever google or similar ad networks
| pay, to avoid ads. Seems like it would help reduce
| clickbait as well.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| This is one of those cases where I believe consolidation
| helps the users instead of harming them.
|
| Fragmentation in VOD is taking us back to the cable era where
| you had to pay extra for different content packages.
|
| High quality content is spread across multiple platforms so
| users have to pay more for other services or simply miss out
| on that content.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| You're asking, so I guess I will lay out some reasons.
|
| 1) Choice fatigue.
|
| 2) The annoyance of wanting to watch a specific thing and
| then hunt it down, hoping it is on your service.
|
| 3) The costs (financial, time, irritation) of subscribing to
| multiple services to combat #2.
| jfengel wrote:
| I read it as "I want there to be less content, but more
| content that appeals to me."
| fullshark wrote:
| It's inevitable, consumers aren't gonna support all these
| (subscription) streaming services. Gonna be Disney and one or
| two other streaming services in 10 years.
| barrenko wrote:
| Netflix does not have a defined product.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > One of Holland's last projects for Netflix was The Queen's
| Gambit, an expensive period piece that sources say was mocked as
| "Holland's Folly" by some in-house. According to sources, Bajaria
| and her staff were dismissive and even unpleasant to the team
| that worked on it.
|
| What a hellscape to work in. I got on Netflix very briefly, just
| to watch that show. I can't think of any reason to get back on.
| ghaff wrote:
| Oh I loved The Queen's Gambit and thought the format was
| perfect too. However, I can easily see why a producer might
| have passed on a pitch.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I dislike this format because it makes a 4 hour story into an
| 8 hour story where 4 hours of it is showing the character in
| some type of inebriated state. I think flight attendant did
| this too, and the only reason I can think of is to pad their
| statistics and it being cheap to film those sequences. But it
| just ends up boring me.
|
| And all the content producers are doing it. I tried Severance
| on Apple TV+, and I had to stop after 4 episodes because
| nothing was happening, and this is supposed to be a
| critically acclaimed show.
|
| The new Batman movie was excruciatingly long too. I miss my
| 100min stories from the early 2000s and before.
| brundolf wrote:
| Different strokes I guess; I thought Severance was great. I
| didn't even notice the sequences you're describing, but I
| guess in hindsight they added flavor/gave me a mental break
| to process recent plot developments
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Severance does not have the drunk/high sequences, but it
| was just crazy slow for me. I might also just be an
| atypical watcher, but it still feels like a lot of
| shows/movies are a lot longer than they used to be when I
| was a kid, and yet the extra minutes do not give me any
| extra enjoyment. Or maybe I am just getting old and
| turning into my dad.
| ghaff wrote:
| What is almost certainly true is that a lot of shows are
| more serialized than when you were a kid given that
| serial was mostly bad for a number of reasons in the
| broadcast era.
|
| So most shows were pretty much 30-60 self-contained
| minutes with relatively little prior context needed. If
| you're going to tell a story over 8 hours or even several
| seasons, various aspects of the pace are going to be a
| lot slower.
| skrbjc wrote:
| LOL, I just saw a category on Netflix "90 minute movies
| from the 2000s" and your post reminded me of that. In the
| moment, I was like, "this is exactly what I wanted" and
| ended up watching a movie from the list.
|
| I find that I often don't want to commit to another long
| series nor do I want to watch some movie that is
| exceptionally long. I hope this sort of shorter content
| comes back as an alternative to the very long movies we see
| today.
| lou1306 wrote:
| Every studio has had similar blunders. Disney expected The Lion
| King to fail and Pocahontas to be huge.
| mattboardman wrote:
| This seems particularly well sourced for pretty intimate events.
| There's also a lot of spin in certain parts that tells a one
| sided story.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| If anyone from netflix is reading, the reason I don't watch as
| much as I used to is because of the automatic previews. I used to
| just leave netflix open all day and randomly pick things when I
| felt like watching. I can't do that anymore. Though I do really
| appreciate how easy it is to suspend/cancel. I'll be back for
| stranger things, but who knows how long I'll stay.
| drewg123 wrote:
| On a web browser, go to
| https://www.netflix.com/settings/playback/
|
| You can disable autoplay of previews, and you can disable
| autoplay of the next episode in a series.
| moomin wrote:
| A spectacularly dark pattern to have the setting only
| available on the device you never use the service on.
| layer8 wrote:
| That settings page also works in mobile web browsers. But
| yes, it's not discoverable from the app.
| Lutzb wrote:
| Autoplaying previews has really made me averse to browsing
| Netflix for new shows. I mostly head directly to the content I
| want to see.
| paxys wrote:
| You can turn them off
| [deleted]
| dmitriid wrote:
| And then you can't play trailers. Though Netflix insists on
| playing on random clips instead of trailers anyway.
| the_common_man wrote:
| What does trailers have to do with auto play?
| barbazoo wrote:
| I don't think so, you can still go to "Trailers & more" and
| watch the trailer.
| staccatomeasure wrote:
| +1 I also pretty strongly dislike that they've been defaulted
| on. They seem wasteful and the user experience is hectic.
| mikkergp wrote:
| I'm Curious if there's going to be a noticeable Stranger Things
| dropoff. Though there will probably be a big uptick for Squid
| Game season 2. Apparently season 1 was worth $1 billion dollars
| for Netflix.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Usually when they do 2nd seasons is because they want to
| squeeze more views/profit from the show, most times at the
| expense of quality.
| barbazoo wrote:
| There is a setting, at least on some devices, "Autoplay
| previews while browsing on all devices", would that fix your
| issue?
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| I have to agree on that - it seems like forcing a show/movie to
| a user even if that does not align with their mood or historic
| picks. I am not interested at all in shows like Inventing Anna
| or Tinder Swindler or Selling Sunset but I have to still cope
| with them showing that moving banner ad like that covering so
| much real estate.
|
| What I would like to see is, semantic search where I could
| elaborate the shows/movies I'd like to search for: "A classic
| movie starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg" and
| Netflix shows me "War of the Worlds" in search results.
| Bekwnn wrote:
| I'm just interested in something like a "not interested"
| button distinct from the thumbs down button. Netflix insists
| on suggesting the same shows I've never clicked for months or
| even years of them showing on my front page. I'd like to say,
| "Hey, stop suggesting this."
|
| I don't feel like Netflix lacks things to watch, I just feel
| it does a terrible job keeping its suggestions fresh.
| mtnygard wrote:
| I'd really like to be able to say "I like this _kind_ of
| thing, just not this specific one." You know, just because
| I don't like "Valerian", I still enjoy sci-fi.
|
| Thumbs-down on a video seems to remove the whole category.
| dont__panic wrote:
| It is very similar to how Spotify tanked their platform for
| my use -- at some point, I'm a paying customer, and I get
| annoyed when you constantly shove your original content down
| my through regardless of how much it matches my preferences.
|
| You just can't start a service with recommendations as part
| of your sell... and then bastardize those recommendations
| into advertisements or original content-pushers. Paying
| customers eventually lose patience.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Netflix created the bad but successful template that the other
| streaming services followed: own the streaming platform _and_ the
| content -- and now they 're suffering for it, and so are
| consumers.
|
| As a consumer, I don't want to have 5 different streaming
| services with subs coming and going depending on what shows
| happen to be in season. I'd rather choose to subscribe to one of
| various streaming services that in turn let me source content
| from many providers and just let me pay per show or whatever
| (maybe after a free first episode or something, I dunno).
|
| In a way I kind of feel bad for Netflix, because they were there
| "first" and for a long time had maybe one of the more "open" (in
| terms of content) services. Now the studios are in control again.
| It's not good for the consumer.
| stefan_ wrote:
| This seems to be the most obvious explanation. There is simply
| competition now where there was none before. A good learning
| moment here for HN, where we mistake lengthy in-depth blog
| posts for an unassailable tech advantage when in reality this
| stuff is kinda commodity.
| jdmichal wrote:
| I'm amazed that people didn't see this coming as the end game
| of the "cut the cord" transition... This was always where it
| was going to end up. Netflix proved the concept, but it ends up
| that having an early-mover advantage doesn't matter when you
| don't own your product, just the platform. But of course what
| people are actually paying for is the product. And it's been
| shown time and again that people are willing to put up with
| "good enough" platforms as long as it has the product they
| want.
|
| It's the downside of all "content platform" plays. There's
| nothing stopping a new platform from taking over YouTube or
| Facebook or Twitter. All it takes is the actual content
| producers moving to a different platform and _poof_ there it
| goes.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > Netflix created the bad but successful template that the
| other streaming services followed: own the streaming platform
| and the content
|
| Netflix was basically forced into this template when major
| content owners started pulling out and creating their own
| services.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Sure, absolutely, I could probably rephrase to make that
| clear, I don't think it was their "fault" per se, but a
| result of the asymmetrical power relationship between content
| producer and streaming service.
| clpm4j wrote:
| Can this really be classified as a "crash"? They're a 20+ year
| old company, a hugely successful business, and likely to continue
| to be a major player in both entertainment & tech for the next
| decade+. Perpetual high growth is a fantasy.
| mgh2 wrote:
| It is a crash because the stock tumbled far below pre-pandemic
| to 2017 levels, with still more bad news to come...
| ghaff wrote:
| This chart [1] was making the rounds a while back. Whether you
| totally agree with its methodology or not, it certainly suggests
| that many people consider a huge swath of Netflix' content
| average at best.
|
| And for someone like me who doesn't watch a huge amount of video,
| that's not a great look. Tastes differ of course but my tastes
| aren't that out of the mainstream. And I'd rather a streaming
| service had a modest number of high quality shows than a whole
| lot of meh.
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/loudmouthjulia/status/151679497810579456...
| whoisjuan wrote:
| That graph isn't showing that. Sure, Netflix produces way more
| content than competitors but they also have more shows in the
| far right (outstanding and exceptional) than their competitors.
| brimble wrote:
| The ratio of OK-or-worse to good-or-exceptional sure appears
| to be a less favorable for Netflix than the others.
|
| Though people's rankings seem crazy to me. Apparently just
| producing a Star Wars thing and not totally shitting the bed
| in the process counts as "exceptional". Then again... yeah,
| that's kinda true, I guess. From a certain point of view.
| Still, better than nearly all shows on all those services?
| Yikes. I dunno about that.
| jandrese wrote:
| People were hungry for non-crap Star Wars content. Disney+
| knows how to ride the wave.
| ghaff wrote:
| Hence my comment about the methodology. And HBO Max doesn't
| have anything that's exceptional?
|
| For that reason, it doesn't really make sense to focus on
| the specifics of a handful of outliers as unreliably ranked
| by RT (I think). The real message is that large as Netflix'
| catalog is, it doesn't necessarily have a lot more highly
| ranked content than other sites have. (Which roughly
| squares with my anecdotal impressions.)
| mikkergp wrote:
| But doesn't this? Medthodology aside, taking the data as
| is, Netflix has like 30 programs outstanding or better.
| The next best is like 10. Weird about HBO Max though.
| Maybe because they don't consider HBO shows as
| 'streaming'. At least Succession should be in
| exceptional. If not a lot more, if you include the older
| work.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| The fact that Titans is slightly higher ranked than
| Peacemaker on HBO is insane.
|
| The data would be more interesting if it could be broken
| up by demographics. My wife (along with a lot of women)
| likes reality tv, and Netflix has a fair amount of that.
| I personally can't stand it.
| mikkergp wrote:
| While Ratio is usually the right way to evaluate things. Is
| that applicable in this case? Doesn't what matters is the
| number of good shows not the percentage? If I watch Netflix
| I can find three Exceptional shows and a bunch of
| Outstanding shows, including three at the high end of
| outstanding. If I watch Apple TV + There are no exceptional
| shows and only one at the high end of outstanding, but the
| ratio seems better.
|
| I guess it would depend on discoverability.
| brimble wrote:
| It matters if they're not spending less for each show, on
| average, than other services. If you're dropping $20m a
| season, on average, and so are your competitors, but more
| of yours are duds, that's bad. If you're dropping $5m to
| your competitors' $20m, maybe it's not a problem if, say,
| twice as many of your seasons are bad.
|
| But, part of the trouble with this analysis, as far as
| sussing out the above issue, is season-count. How many
| Netflix originals are as long as, say, The Sopranos? Or
| The Wire? How many are only one season, or maybe two?
| It's possible (possible! I do not know) the hours-of-
| original-content difference between Netflix and the other
| services isn't as large as this suggests. Or that it's
| even larger. Hard to tell.
|
| I'd say that this chart _points toward_ bad things for
| Netflix, but without some other pieces of data it 's hard
| to tell what it's actually saying.
| ghaff wrote:
| They don't really have that many more shows well out to the
| right; it's mostly a draw. (And at that point you're talking
| pretty small numbers.) But it's pretty clear from the graph
| that, as a percentage of their total shows, more Netflix
| shows are just OK than the other services. (Now if the bulk
| of that is very cheap drek to boost the size of the catalog,
| that's OK I guess. But I doubt that it is.)
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >They don't really have that many more shows well out to
| the right; it's mostly a draw.
|
| Netflix has significantly more in the outstanding category:
| for example, I count around 8 for Disney, 11 for Apple, 10
| for HBO Max, 8 for Hulu, and at least 39 for Netflix. I
| don't know how you call that a draw.
|
| And I don't really care about the average show, since I
| (and I suspect most others) are not uniformly randomly
| sampling movies to watch with zero input from others. I
| (and I suspect others) watch those that are rated as good
| movies, and in that case, Netflix is crushing the
| competition by the numbers in that chart.
|
| Netflix, by that chart, provides a lot more shows rated
| good, outstanding, and exceptional.
| ghaff wrote:
| Although most of those Netflix shows are on the far left
| of that category.
|
| There are a lot of ways you can interpret the info and a
| lot of good questions that it doesn't really answer. But
| it is interesting that Netflix clearly looks different
| from others.
| cgriswald wrote:
| There is a disconnect between what I want and what providers
| are trying to offer me. I want quality content with powerful
| search. Providers seem to think I want a huge unsearchable
| library from which they will make recommendations. Netflix
| has lots and lots of great original content, but given a
| random show, it's far more likely to be average or less
| (versus, say, HBOmax).
| mikkergp wrote:
| There was a while where they were talking about providers
| making a lot of Niche Content. I wonder if they need to do
| a better job of adapting to personas. I love the
| Victorian/Edwardian Farm series that are on Prime, and I
| think of shows in a niche as sort of "beyond rating". i.e.
| They are never going to get the money to be considered
| "exceptional", but will be draw just as strongly for people
| who appreciate that niche. (Deep not broad). So can Netflix
| create a curated and simpler interface that optimizes for
| Outstanding/Exceptional or period pieces or whatever
| instead of just a long list that's hard to grok.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I had HBO and tried to watch every show. There are plenty
| of ho-hum shows. An HBO show has a theme and style their
| own which makes getting into a show a lengthy affair only
| to realize it's not what you really want. Netflix sums up
| the show in a preview making it easier.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Providers seem to think I want a huge unsearchable
| library from which they will make recommendations.
|
| Providers want to act as gatekeepers who have the power to
| make something popular by limiting your options to
| alternatives. Sometimes they also want to be able to accept
| money for heavily promoting specific things over others.
| It's not about delivering a quality product to you at all,
| it's about what gives them money/power at your expense.
| ghaff wrote:
| On the other hand, a lot of people are fine with putting
| unremarkable content on as largely background noise. That's
| what a lot of broadcast TV was. So there's probably at
| least some market for a large catalog of OK stuff rather
| than more of a focus on prestige TV.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| How would you know?
|
| Between deliberately bad search and a bias towards pushing
| you to waste time rather than entertain, they bury their own
| content and deliver swill.
|
| Netflix got away with it because they were the only game in
| town. Disney really broke the seal and delivered a good
| platform. Apple is delivering strong content that compensates
| for the horrific application.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Right. I don't care about the shows/movies I _don 't_ want to
| watch on a streaming service. I only care if there are enough
| shows/movies on there I _do_ want to see.
| bawolff wrote:
| I also don't want to spend large amounts of time
| researching what i want to watch. If there is one good show
| with poor discoverability burried under a mountain of crap,
| that is still a product failure.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| The chart doesn't include HBO originals. I've never seen a
| Netflix show that is on par with the best HBO content.
| omegalulw wrote:
| I don't know about other people, but finding something to watch
| on Netflix is frustrating, there's so much poor quality shows.
| The recommendations are not good (tbf that's most streaming
| services) and there's no option for granular filtering. For
| example, I hate dubs, I would like to pick shows where the
| original audio is some particular language, I don't get why
| that isn't there?
|
| In contrast, on HBO Max / Disney+, usually there's far less
| content but since the quality is better you can easily pick
| something to watch.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| > I would like to pick shows where the original audio is some
| particular language, I don't get why that isn't there?
|
| I'm somewhat confused by your sentiments here, if you search
| "French"/"Spanish"/etc Netflix will bring up a list of movies
| and shows in those languages, it's one of my main uses of
| Netflix these days.
| o_1 wrote:
| It used to be even better, they had user ratings in early
| versions. Hiding content or forcing users to watch things is
| extremely bad. they got away with all this because they had
| such a huge headstart on 90% of online streaming. There were
| no other options. Now... those things are starting to sour
| out.
|
| I remember finding great b movies and content with user
| reviews.
| autoexec wrote:
| I agree, netflix might be too embarrassed by their catalogue
| to show people a simple A-Z listing of everything they have,
| but I'd absolutely watch netflix more often if they did.
| Scrolling through the same shows I'm not interested in over
| and over across their multiple random/useless categories
| takes up way too much time.
|
| Every so often I'll go to search and enter random 2-3 letter
| combinations because I usually find a bunch of stuff I'd like
| to see but Netflix has been hiding from me.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| I have to wonder how much of this is to favor cache hits
| for streams over picking the bytes up out of storage. That
| is, if a bunch of people are streaming a show, it's easier
| to add a few more and reuse the edge cache. Most viewers
| won't go beyond the recommendations, so the back-catalog
| pulls are less frequent, and less pressure on the
| infrastructure.
|
| Total speculation, though.
| tedsanders wrote:
| They already have simple A-Z listings.
|
| All TV shows A-Z:
| https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/83?so=az
|
| All movies A-Z:
| https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/34399?so=az
|
| You can find it in the web UI by clicking a TV or movie
| page, and then choosing Sort A-Z. The reason it's so buried
| is that it's pretty useless. Most people don't want to
| scroll through a hundred mostly bad shows starting with
| punctuation symbols and numbers.
|
| Agree with you that it would be lovely if Netflix had more
| fine-grained controls.
| jandrese wrote:
| Eyeballing the chart it looks like the percentages for each
| section are roughly the same for each service, Netflix just has
| a lot more shows so they fill in the "just average" box more
| than the other services.
| rmatt2000 wrote:
| Is anyone else's OCD triggered by the x-axis on that chart?
| Thorrez wrote:
| Funny that Netflix's top "original" (in fact, the top show in
| the entire graph), Cobra Kai, was actually a YouTube Original
| for the first 2 seasons.
|
| Disclosure: I work at Google, but no on anything related to
| this.
| moomin wrote:
| The thing is, their strategy is fundamentally flawed. They
| understood they needed to build up a library, but their metrics
| chased subscriber uptick that said "Only the first two seasons
| matter." So, with a couple of exceptions they're building up a
| large library of cancelled shows.
| boredumb wrote:
| A pile of mid tier content that i'd flick through before exiting
| out after an episode
|
| Automatic previews
|
| Increasing pop politics seemingly shoe horned into everything I'd
| turn on
|
| Horrible comedians that were akin to ted talks/lectures or made
| for people who don't actually enjoy stand up comedy.
|
| Documentaries that were more ideological than interesting
|
| Signing and hiring ex politicians
|
| Searching is a chore and recommendations are nearly never useful.
| (Just to have some toggles around metadata like
| language/genre/public rating and a text box to fuzzy search
| through titles and descriptions?)
|
| I cancelled my subscription a few years ago and I get more
| mileage and enjoyable content out of free apps like tubi, pluto,
| vhscast and peacock than I had in a long time with netflix.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I likewise would like to watch a nature documentary once in a
| while which didn't feel obligated to mention impending doom at
| least once every five minutes. If anybody had anything to say
| about said doom above a fifth grade level, I might watch that
| too.
| sytelus wrote:
| This is great insider reporting! Most people have no clue how
| shows gets selected and blame "wokness" for troubles at Netflix.
| In reality, the cost-cutting high-volume risk-averse leadership
| took over initial leadership of opposite nature. Transition from
| " gut-driven, risktaking, maverick culture" to "prudent and
| frequently indecisive" is exactly the story of many other areas.
| Well put.
| hammock wrote:
| If you like this stuff here's another one
|
| https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/he-makes-you-fe...
| rodgerd wrote:
| > Most people have no clue how shows gets selected and blame
| "wokness" for troubles at Netflix.
|
| Well, the people blaming "wokeness" aren't connected to reality
| anyway, so I doubt that any evidence will change their mind.
|
| But it's ironic if the reign of an "anti-woke" Chapelle
| loyalist is what tanks them.
| rmatt2000 wrote:
| I think the "woke" people watch TV too. The problem is that
| there are not nearly as many of them as social media makes it
| appear that there are.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| This isn't "insider reporting". If you don't how the media
| works, when the article says "Sources close to Holland" or a
| "Holland loyalist"...it is Holland (usually journalists will
| make an effort to disguise that, but the precise events being
| "quoted anonymously" here make obvious that the main source for
| the story was one person i.e. when the "anonymous" source
| quotes a conversation that occurred with two people in the
| room...it is obvious). There is no real analysis, it is just
| execs sniping at each other and trying to make sure future
| employers think it was someone else's fault.
|
| On the subject, the problem with Netflix was that they tried to
| have it both ways. They seemed to think they could
| significantly increase output without decreasing quality. So
| saying that the failure of the new strategy is prudence ignores
| the fact that reckless spending got them into this
| position...bankruptcy tends to force prudence, but that is ex-
| post...prudence is not the cause of bankruptcy.
|
| I think this should indicate that problems with NFLX are
| slightly more fundamental. I am sure they have the capacity to
| produce great shows. Look at their debt, look at how much
| capital they have committed to production...you can produce
| multiple "best ever" shows, and it won't get you out that hole.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Agree with this assessment, Cindy Holland is bitter she was
| pushed out and reached out through "channels" to deliver her
| own take on events. Its not really reporting just
| highlighting a power struggle from an individuals
| viewpoint(Cindy).
|
| If the events mentioned in the story are in fact a cause of
| NFLX's decline is another story. People were forced
| inside(globally) during the pandemic and consumed alot more
| media than ever before in history. The quality of shows at
| NFLX has gone down considerably the past 2 years. NFLX pushed
| a show that alienated alot of people with Cuties. Friends and
| other hit shows left NFLX. Inflation has hit a 40 year high
| and gas and food are expensive, people are cutting costs and
| NFLX seems like an easy cut.
|
| Would Cindy have stopped all of the above events? Maybe the
| quality issue but costs(under her) seemed steep, who can say?
| I think no matter who is at the top NFLX would have suffered
| in some way. If Ted had chose Cindy instead of Bela Bajaria
| we would have a similar article talking about Bela's sources
| and how Cindy's excessive spending and smaller show lineups
| are killing NFLX.
| ketzo wrote:
| > They seemed to think they could significantly increase
| output without decreasing quality.
|
| An executive is quoted, on their strategy, as saying "We
| succeed if 1 in 10 shows is a hit." I think it's pretty clear
| they didn't think they were pumping out pure winners.
| conradfr wrote:
| > (It was also Holland who warned Sarandos, to no avail, that
| continuing to order specials from one of his comedy heroes,
| Dave Chappelle, would lead to internal strife and bad press.)
|
| Given that the journalist goes out of her way to include this,
| it's not a mystery why "wokeness" is not mentioned in the
| article :)
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