Maybe Netflix and other cooperating services will jack their prices to $20 so I can finally unsubscribe.
95% of these Made by Netflix titles suck and haven't justified the price hikes.
Most of it is awful quality and would've died on the vine on a network channel, and their bar is pretty low. The rest of the library is getting pretty thin as well. I don't think Netflix has a very bright future and will probably be remembered like Myspace, one of the first big players in a space they will cease to be relevant in.
In short, metaphor is hard, especially when you're applying it to complex issues.
And honestly the idea of studio quality is kind of stupid—my favorite show of all time in terms of cinematic quality, The Knick, was done by Cinemax (skinemax?) and virtually nobody has heard of it. The best shows can come from anywhere, and everyone puts out shit content.
This doesn't even apply to arguably good shows like The Killing, whose later Netflix-produced season is so awful it's embarrassing, not because it appealed to a wider demographic -- it was pretty niche -- but simply because it was terrible, badly acted and worse plotted. I've no explanation in this case.
I'm surprised by what people are saying about Bright. I disliked it because it was a bland knockoff of Shadowrun and similar scifi-with-orks-and-elves settings, with weak SFX and an even weaker plot. The commentary about racism -- whether well or badly done -- didn't even factor in my dislike. Bright is indeed a by-the-numbers urban fantasy made to appeal to a wide demographic, with nothing interesting to say about scifi, fantasy or even action. It was quite accurately described by the press as "a movie done with an algorithm". So of course it will likely have a sequel!
I really hope bland shows aren't the future of Netflix, but I fear they will be because they make business sense.
* high-end accounts that allow multiple streams and 4k
* mid-tier with limited streams and max 1080p
* free-tier for password sharers, they don't go after account sharing afaik
They'd rather you watch netflix for free than anything else for free. It helps build a long-term market for their content.
If each charge $20 / mon that's close to $2,000 / year just for content to your television - a full payslip for many low-income people. Such prices might be justifiable to enthusiasts but not really for the general public.
You lost me here.
That's like tasking yourself with staying current with your Warhammer 40k or Magic The Gathering card collection and complaining that it's expensive. Yet you suggested TV as if it's some self-evident thing everyone wants to maximize.
When I initially made the switch, I didnt use an antenna (my complaint is about commercials, not (just) the cable company). I discovered that I lost the ability to participate in a lot of water cooler talk. Even now, I didnt wat bird box, or game of thrones (at least not yet) and I was missing references to them all over the place.
Socially, groups use such references to indicate belonging. This is true in communities of varying sizes. Ergo, not participating DOES have repercussions.
I'm not saying it makes sense to break the bank, but I am saying there are social and therefore economic and other consequences.
But I don't find that very convincing otherwise.
I reinvoke my comparison to deciding you need to own every Magic The Gathering card for whatever reason you want to use. This is more obviously silly because how normalized and socially-acceptable TV obsession is in our culture, but I still don't buy that it's something remotely necessary in your life. And it seems like a popular but toxic self-limiting belief.
Just like if you were to tell me you think the reason you can't make friends is because you can't talk football at the water cooler, so you study the sport every night so that you can spout trivia at work. I would suspect some sort of social disability if you did that.
Historically, people lived in little villages, knew all the same people, etc. These days, TV shows and movies get used to establish a common frame of social reference between people who really don't know each other well.
A hundred years ago, you would have commented on a mutual acquaintance or an event you both attended to bond and to facilitate communication. Now, we routinely use popular media references for the same purpose.
I mostly don't care that I'm "missing out." But, yeah, there is a real social cost involved.
This is part of why it's de facto exclusionary for "the old boys network" to engage in specific social activities that cannot readily be done by, for example, women as well in a "co-ed" fashion.
Which may not matter at all to your life, but could be the make or break for someone else's career.
You choose to find this incredulous and ridiculous. You can certainly do so. I hope you take a few minutes to actually consider why this might matter to many people - those references are made to build camaraderie and a sense of inclusion. Ergo, not following creates a sense of alienation and separation.
You can mock that or not, but that doesn't change how people feel.