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Comment by ethbro | Hacker News Reader

Netflix rightly saw that there was no independent end game if they continued licensing other owners' content.

Eventually, revenues go up and licensing deals expire. Then, either the owners increase the price for licensing their content, or they refuse to license it and start their own service.

Lose/lose

Netflix realized the only blue sky was owning a large catalog of their own content, ideally used to retain users and starve other services, and then license content when they have the upper hand.

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The real beauty that enables this blue sky opportunity is the personalized targeting Netflix can do AT GLOBAL SCALE! The old school Hollywood model for creating shows and movies is getting turned on its face.

Critics will hate a lot of what Netflix puts out, and it won't matter at all to the fans who can get exactly what they want in the comfort of their home free from judgement and peer pressure.

There's no personalized targetting in content. It's really one size fits all, or at least the regular S-M-L. It is, obviously, impossible to make different shows for millions of individuals.

What Netflix has is more detailed data of what people watch. So will its competitors is just a few years.

What matters in content is the content of that content. Ideas, emotions, excitement. Technology is irrelevant.

Can't we expect in a few years to dynamically change what actors have been cast as what charavters with a flip of a button? Deep fakes already look pretty convincing.

Also, insert some scenes, remove others, change the cut a little bit, change color grading, music mix – all these changes look like something modern AI could learn to do.

Absolutely not. None of this is possible or even desirable. We don't want to watch optimized video. We want to watch stories that move us, created by geniuses like Coppola, or whoever you think is good.

What if a story could be modified dynamically in order to maximize the chance that it moves you? Or to deepen its impact? I figured that’s what the GP post was getting at.

Just more tools for geniuses to use to move us and move us more deeply.

It makes a lot of sense, and though what I say may sound a bit ridiculous, I don't think most people are capable of making such decisions. They'd rather have some mindless entertainment than moving stuff (we already know this from what's shared on social media, and how TV news and reality shows thrive).

Why would you think that what we want, or, to be more exact, what we think we want, matters? The only thing that matters is what we end up watching more and not closing.

A lot of people say that they want long, challenging reading but they end up reading Buzzfeed articles. Don't ask people what they want to do - watch what they actually do.

The question is probably a bit different - if there is a place for a new genere that is not a linear, sequential narrative model.

There is, they're called video games.

This seems like a good idea on its surface (even to me). But in every case I can think of where an algorithmic approach was taken to producing "high-quality" "high-value" artistic content, it's produced things I have zero interest in that the greater population seems to dutifully consume and not even really enjoy all that much.

Youtube is positioned to take a similar approach, and it turns out the formula that works the best is sociopathic narcissists of a certain age with certain facial features producing 10-minute videos of rats getting tasered 7 days a week.

I think this might be a situation where the gap between what people want, and what people will consume, is very wide. And the algorithms know how to produce what people will consume, but they do not know how to produce what people want.

The problem is that people will end up paying for what they consume even if they don’t want it; but won’t pay (or at least continue paying) for things they want but don’t bother actually consuming.

I'd just like to add that Netflix's vision and foresight and courage has been consistently amazing for years at every stage of their phenomenal growth. Hats off to their leadership.

I agree. The expansion of Netflix to 130 countries was a great move! The content isn't the same in all locations, but it's better than incentivizing people to download from elsewhere by keeping content closed and restricted.

That’s not how Spotify played it. Spotify bet the farm on discovery and won, with users marveling at how good their playlist selections are. When people are using Spotify recommendations, they become immune to content creators threatening to terminate deals because their users are listening to “Spotify” rather than going and specifically searching Taylor Swift.

Immune?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/ruling-raises-songwr...

That’s a coordinated action (through the courts) which is a good point... if the four major labels collude they can fuck over Spotify and the DOJ sure as shit isn’t going to care one whit.

Spotify has done well, but what is their moat? If another service becomes better at discovery, won't most of Spotify's users switch to it?

Their moat is that discovery is fueled by listener data, so it will be very hard to get better at discovery than them. Apple Music tried and failed: their success comes from device bundling and most evaluators of both agree that Spotify’s discovery is far better (I have not personally evaluated Apple Music).

Spotify doesn't have a moat. They're not profitable.

Most evaluators?

I have both, and for discovery spotify is way behind Apple Music, and i often find things on Apple Music that i cant get on Spotify. But one of those factors maybe my taste, but i have one friend with totally opposite taste to me that has had the exact same experience.

> i often find things on Apple Music that i cant get on Spotify

You are not using discovery really if you are doing the finding. It should be automatic in that just play one of the daily or weekly lists and music that you like (some old some new) should be played.

I tried Apple Music for its free trial and switched back to Spotify as I just can't be bothered to choose what I listen to myself.

I would believe what the parent is alluding to is that "sufficiently good" discovery is enough, in that if trusted, it turns music into a fungible good.

If Taylor Swift pulls out of Spotify, but Spotify's users are listening to "Discover" not "Taylor Swift", then Spotify is afforded with the opportunity to play "something that sounds like Taylor Swift." And god knows there are enough hungry and talented bands out there looking for a break...

Admittedly, it's been awhile since I was in grade school and marched in musical lockstep with my peers, but it seems as decent of an idea for disempowering major, advertising-heavy record labels as anything.

It's been heading the same direction. There have been a number of artists that pulled out after the Taylor Swift bit, and the Beetles albums are still iTunes only due to an exclusive deal.

You'll see there are quite a few bitter complaints online: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Content-Questions/WHY-do-yo...

The Beatles are not exclusive to iTunes. I can access a tonne of their albums on Deezer.

You're right, it seems they only ran some things exclusively temporarily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_Bootleg_Recordings...

The Beatles are on Spotify. Taylor Swift has even rejoined Spotify, obviously it was worth it for her in the end.

There are only a few artists who are Apple Music or Tidal exclusive, in an attempt drive users to those platforms.

Tool is not on Spotify or Google Play Music. I'm not sure if they are on Apple Music or Tidal. If anyone knows for sure, please do comment, I'm interested to know.

Also, Spotify has 3 Volor Flex albums, but is missing the one I usually want - "Unlit". I'm pretty sure that specific album is on Amazon Music though, oddly enough.

This isn't a particularly substantiative comment, just some datapoints that irk me about Spotify's inventory.

Tool isn't on any streaming services. They don't believe in streaming or something. They're probably the last popular artist/band to eschew all streaming.

Spotify is a music service with the background of compulsory licensing. If we had compulsory licensing for motion pictures, the landscape would be a lot different.

Only the publishing is compulsory license. The performance is not — if Spotify wanted to carry Taylor Swift songs against her wishes, it would need to hire a musician to re-record the tracks.

Can't they carry anything that was released commercially under the non-interactive rules if they play it in the Radio portion, or a 'Taylor Swift Fan station? I agree they wouldn't be able to play it for on demand without a bilateral agreement.

I think they're already moving this way. Most of the things in my "Discover Weekly" for the last several months have been covers of popular songs. I haven't opened Spotify in weeks. When I want music these days, I go to Bandcamp.

> That’s not how Spotify played it. Spotify bet the farm on discovery and won

Spotify has a horrifically bad business. They're bleeding to death financially, having never earned a profit in their entire existence; they've burned through billions in financing and are still burning at a similarly high rate. Simultaneously Apple is likely to catch up in subscribers in the near future, diluting the leverage Spotify desperately needs to improve its bargaining situation. Apple can afford to burn billions to bury Spotify (likely force them into a sale/acquisition).

Spotify is in a no win scenario. They'll never have enough margin to earn a profit via licensing all of their most heavily listened-to content. The content owners will perpetually squeeze Spotify. This is the fate that Netflix understood to attempt to avoid, which Spotify has entirely failed to avoid. Meanwhile all of largest competitors to Spotify actually make money (Sirius as one example is very profitable). Spotify's only possible future is in the belly of one of the tech or media giants.

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