Netflix original series no longer get time to breathe

We're now at the point where a library exists, and they are now going for easy wins quickly instead of continuing to invest in quality content that would actually grow that library. I suspect in an effort to keep their profit growth rate up for Wall Street.

2. We don't actually know how the popularity looks because we don't have the numbers. Even with the numbers, show popularity is a function of marketing and time allowed to grow, which is exactly what the article highlights.

Taking a page out of Sony's playbook, I see.

Ethics? Nope, money.

Good art? Nope, money.

Public benefit? Nope, money.

It is a reductive view that assumes that the legal framework is static, unchanging, and aligned towards morally good benefit.

Equity valuations assume distant future returns. Yes, there's strategic decisions to be made at both the department and overall level about how much one tries to maximize current cash output vs. invests in the brand and infrastructure.

Not to mention: it works better when you have different parties advocating for different parts of this picture and arguing. Let finance try and squeeze out every nickel that can be squeezed, today. Let content seek after a vision of success. And let creatives and finance argue and advocate and figure out a compromise that works and fits in as much of what each wants as possible.

A similar, but infinitely harder problem exists for content production. You simply can't know with any certainty what a given strategy is going to do to long-term demand. If the VP of Content is too focused on the bottom line it will lead to a strategy of pruning production based on short-term viewership. This will decrease the viability of show-runners to do anything risky, ahead-of-its-time or with a longer-term payoff. Potentially even worse is killing cult classics (eg. The OA) which could lead to negative word of mouth both on the customer and on content maker side creating a long-term impact the bean counters can't see until it's too late.

So while Netflix overall has fiduciary responsibility, it is not the best strategy for every single person to be focused directly on revenue and ROI. I'd expect Content to have a slightly more abstract objective that allows room for creative judgement. I think Hollywood and HBO understand this dichotomy and how to operate within it, but judging by the overall bland feel of their catalog, Netflix doesn't.

Same goes for Research & Development. Quarterly profits are not the correct KPI for every department. Where will those quarterly profits be ten years from now?

No, that's the capitalist investors view. The problem is that Netflix now sees it as theirs. I'd bet quite a good sum of money that was not the goal when it started. I'd be surprised if that was the goal in 2010-2015 even.

> So that the owners (which includes thousands of normal working class employees) can buy food for their families.

If that were true, they would not be trying so hard to turn these excess profits. With how Netflix pays I don't think you can really call their employees "normal working class" either. Netflix is a classic case of greed and profit corrupting art. In some ways inevitable, but it's sad to see there's not even an internal tension between finance and content. That should be a battle that is waged daily in order to balance multiple purposes: both making money to support its employees and investors, and the art of shows and movies, among others.

It strikes me as s deliberate marketing tactic. Instead of investing in creating nice, acclaimed dramas, they put that money into relatively more garbage shows that cater to mass audiences and try to find shortcuts to repurpose that content and repackage it to “kill two birds with one stone” and cater to the indie niche with it.

But the tactic doesn’t work, and now my Netflix menus are filled with super frustrating noise of these foreign shows, often which you can’t tell are foreign until you press play. It has made the platform nearly unusable to me.

The crazy thing is that I love a lot of foreign movies and shows. Amour, You Are the Apple of my Eye, Burning are some of my favorite films. But the things Netflix is pushing on me are more like network-level crap dramas with a clear attempt to make you feel like they are fancy merely by being foreign.

I have shows I’m watching on Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, as well as ones I’ve purchased from the iTunes Store; all of which show up nicely in my Up Next list. It’s the first thing I go to when I fire up my Apple TV to watch something, and as a result unless I have been binging something recently anything on Netflix gets put on the back burner because I have to go elsewhere to look for it.

The Apple TV app already shows results for Netflix content, but without better integration I have to remember to go back to pick a show up. I actually cancelled Netflix at the end of December because discovery was such a chore, I just resubscribed last week to check out The Witcher and watch Altered Carbon when it returns, after which I’ll likely drop it again.

As an aside, I got a year of Apple TV+ free when I activated my replacement iPhone XS. I am rather surprised at the quality of content Apple has put out and the rate they are expanding their library. I may we’ll keep this one around if they keep it up.

But back on topic, Magicians isn’t a Netflix show. But they’d be smart to purchase it from SyFy if that were to become possible.

Making more money than an ad-based monetization model can provide?

Works on phones/smaller screens for sure.

The "limited series" format is a very good match for flatrate streaming and there are lots of very good examples, mostly from the UK.

The problem is shows designed for >30 episodes being cut short. Do that too often and you'll see massive reluctance to start watching any new show that isn't a limited series. When was the last time you considered using the Google chat system du jour?

It's also not a documentary, despite saying it is, so Im not "learning." That said, something like the history of the Ottoman Empire probably takes more than 5 episodes to cover.

Now that mailing you a disc is the only way they can get you certain content, the service is back closer to the level it was when they were killing Blockbuster.