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Comment by dawnerd | Hacker News Reader

This is kinda weird for WaPo to write about considering it's pretty common for many companies to send journalists and reviewers on fancy trips. They'll often hold product launches in places like Hawaii, or recently with Jumanji they had a press event in Mexico at a nice resort. Netflix's rivals all do the same exact thing.

> The Washington Post’s policy is not to accept any material gifts from news sources or coverage subjects.

But I bet they're more than willing to accept what is essentially a free vacation on company time.

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> But I bet they're more than willing to accept what is essentially a free vacation on company time.

As someone who was sent to a lot of these trips, they're not that great most of the time. I can't comment on Netflix, but it's usually a short stay at a fancy place with all the nice amenities, but the time spent travelling and listening to the sales pitches isn't worth it.

I pity the journo that would be bought that easily.

Seems to work well for journalists covering consumer products like cars and video games. I've heard of motorcycle companies holding press reviews in Nevada (which has a lot of good off-road test terrain, to be fair) and giving every magazine journalist a few hundred bucks worth of chips to play at the casino.

Which is straightforward bribery: they can walk straight to the counter and cash them out, with no one the wiser.

They are also owned by Mr Bezos, who also owns something called Amazon Prime Video. Looks like Netflix needs to buy it's own newspaper.

Amazon and wapo are independent entities

True, but the connection can have effect. For instance: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/04/mutual-funds-mak...

Mutual funds appear faceless and have an effect, knowing the owner must have much more.

I don't understand the article, particularly because airline travel is the cheapest it has ever been in the history of aviation.

Is the author asserting that mutual funds are preventing air travel from being even cheaper than it already is, which is the cheapest it has ever been in the history of aviation?

This is, of course, excepting approximately six months post-9/11 and the winter holiday season post-financial crisis when the industry was on the verge of collapse and nearly every carrier operated at a loss temporarily both times just to keep people in seats. Except for that brief period in time airline travel is the cheapest it has ever been in the history of aviation.

They are not independent from Mr. Bezos which is what the pc said. Please choose your words more carefully.

Technically. For all sorts of accounting purposes, they're not.

Sure they are. Are you also excited about Santa's visit this Christmas?

There are some shenanigans happening with media takedowns against “tech” and new media companies. Looks to me like a concerted effort to subvert the power they are gaining over the old media based structures. That’s got the old publishing companies. Fox should never have been allowed to merge. They should have been forced to license their catalog.

I think FB is actively harmful to the internet but all we have to do to weaken it is prevent any further acquisitions. Much of the reign them in stuff is misguided.

And don't the Washington posts film/media Journalist go on media junkets

but you know what: for Jeff Bezos it doesn't work out, so there has to be something wrong...

Given that: I'm getting tired of Netflix's concept of producing a lot of crappy shows for regional markets - if I'd like to have that, I can go to my public broadcaster too for the mandatory fee I have to pay anyways... (and they also realized by now that they have to do something for non-retirees). For nice and "special" movies, buying a DVD is most often the only sensible option. Or some stream somewhere... (which are not good at special things either)

Beg to differ. Netflix has made some great local content, narcos, Dark, Casa de papel, The dutch civil war resistance miniseries, some great French comedies, and the list goes on.

I think it's great to see stuff not all coming out of Hollywood.

They also just recently released their own Thai drama series and have done a number of Korean series and films also. I think it goes further than just creating solid content but fostering more investment and talent outside of Hollywood which I think is great.

I can see a lot of non-local (but still European) stuff in Europe too, fully synchronized, in public TV, which I have to pay (...) anyways. And it's the same shallow, non-distinguishable, mass-market ready stuff like 90% of Netflix's own stuff. The only thing Netflix does better for me personally is that the setting generally seems to cater to younger people. Production quality and plot are the same as in public TV.

I really don't get people who use broadcast TV. You have to plan your life around anything you want to watch -- which is the oppostite of Netflix, which adapts to my own schedules and free time. It just seems crazy!

One word: "DVR". Verb sap. We also have Netflix and Prime, and watch a lot of YouTube.

public broadcast TV around here has everything up for free download in 720p some time around broadcasting. So you basically only have to decide if you ever want to watch something and can grab it.

Dark, Casa De Papel, Babylon Berlin are excellent productions.

Babylon Berlin is produced by Sky and got heavy investment from public stations. The rest is certainly nice for a specific crowd, but nothing special either.

Dutch civil war? I think you're talking about another country here.

I meant to say Ww2 resistance. My mistake :)

It’s called “the resistance banker”

That Dutch resistance one sounds interesting

But Netflix frequently subs their local content so it can be watched around the world. As someone who's brain reads subs seamlessly, I like this.

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