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Comment by sethhochberg | Hacker News Reader

Sure, the consumer does have some degree of influence here, but they're still picking from the menu of options the studio makes available.

If someone likes movies as recreation, even if they would prefer something different than the action blockbusters, their choices are "don't enjoy yourself to send a message to the studios" or "watch a movie you might enjoy less than something from another genre"... most people who enjoy watching movies are probably gonna chose the route that still lets them enjoy watching a movie.

The incentives don't line up. Its like buying McDonalds at an isolated highway rest stop - I don't particularly love McDonalds, but if my choices are a hot meal or whatever I can get from a vending machine or pack with me, I'll take the hot meal every time. Its not an enthusiastic endorsement of globalized fast food chains despite my paying for it.

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> The incentives don't line up.

this is again "it takes one to tango" - the people create the incentives the studios follow. movies largely make money with sales volume. this is important; tickets arent more expensive for different movies, its strictly a numbers game (ignoring uncommon deals like toys and video games, etc). according to the first link i clicked, marvel's last movie infinity war grossed two BILLION dollars. you are simply wrong if you think some novel, avant-garde sundance indie is going to interest that many people.

the world is the way people want it to be. this is the tyranny of the majority. if we want non-incentivized things to exist, we're gonna have to invent new socioeconomic theories in this movie thread : )

You are assuming a fair and competitive market where the consumer is actually in charge. False assumption.

The world is the way the people with money want it to be, because it’s the lowest effort, most extractive model they can legally get away with. That’s not to say people didn’t like Endgame, but we all could have done without the last 3 or 4 Transformer movies. There are plenty of examples of trash movies that only get made because the story is watered down enough to pass globally.

The entire premise here is a bit odd to me; are people forced to spend their time and money watching a sub-par movie? Couldn't they watch one of the innumerable television shows that are available, watch YouTube, older movies, etc., etc.? The comparison made above to having to eat McDonald's in a desert doesn't make any sense in this context since that is talking about needing life-supporting nutrients in a literal desert.

Invert it. I want to watch a movie in theaters because that's a treasured pasttime. What's available to see is what's most profitable to the producer (which is measured globally), rather than what's pleasing to the customer (which is measured locally). It doesn't matter that there are alternative avenues - we're talking about a specific, consolidated economic sector that is behaving irrationally at the local level.

I didn't write the McDonald's thing, so I'm not gonna try to contextualize it.

I understand your frustration but I still cannot get past the point that, generally speaking, an individual must make a specific, conscious, and unforced series of decisions in order to repeatedly end up in front of movies that they dislike. Their decisions must also by necessity happen in a context where there are many other media options available.

I also enjoy the cinema but I only go when there are films that I find interesting and worthwhile. In my specific case this means that over the past few years I've seen Parasite, a showing of the original Alien, a few midnight B-tier horror movies, etc. I don't get to go to the movies as often as I would prefer but the alternative of wasting my time on films that I don't find attractive while simultaneously financially supporting an industry I disagree with seems obviously non-viable to me.

> I understand your frustration but I still cannot get past the point that, generally speaking, an individual must make a specific, conscious, and unforced series of decisions in order to repeatedly end up in front of movies that they dislike.

That seems like another odd assumption to make. It doesn't need to be based on individual choices, social dynamics drive plenty of decision making [1]. FWIW, I've only seen 1 new movie this year, and I only plan to see 1 other, so it's not like I disagree with you at an individual level. That's not how it works out in the larger population though - for many people it's their leisure activity of choice.

[1] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox

Lots of people go to movies to go out with a group of friends. They have to agree on the movie, and don't each pick their own one. They enjoy spending time together maybe more than they enjoy the actual movie.

If there's nothing in movie theaters but trash, but your culture values movie-going experience, then you have no choice but either watch trash or forgo this part of your cultural experience altogether. I've been choosing the latter for years now, but I can understand people that choose the former - because I still miss the experience. I'd love to go back to it - but not with trash.

The McDonalds analogy is actually better than you think - imagine by some market quirk most of the restaurants in your city hired chefs that suck at their job. Because, say, The American Culinary Institute declared food is not supposed to taste good, it is supposed to send the right message, and the taste is secondary. It's not like the food isn't edible or harmful anymore - it still delivers the nutrition, and still kinda edible, but sucks. Ignoring the fact you could cook for yourself - let's imagine for a minute you have to dine out - what would you do? You'd go and eat sucky food. And since you do, the business model is provably working. Maybe if the whole town agreed to not eat out for a couple of months as a protest against sucky food, it could be changed - but what are the chances of that actually happening?

Another way of wording this is there's plenty of sequels that play to the long tail of fans of the original who will see anything relating to it

The consumer is in charge of what movies they see. To suppose otherwise assigns people no agency: it's easy to do when it's others, but, it's not a valid way of analyzing it.

I see this as a slippery slope argument that supposes any people who choose to see movies are drowned out by zombies who see only what ads tell them to see and think they're happy, but they're actually not

> The consumer is in charge of what movies they see

No they are not. The consumer is in charge of what they see given the options available. If what the consumer wants is not being produced, then the consumer is choosing the least-bad option (which is sometimes to choose a different activity).

I agree, and the next step would be to argue if there's _any_ options that pass arrosenberg's 'bad' filter, and I feel it gets awkward from there: I can't tell you what passes your filter. I respect your opinion and often say as much myself, but the argumentation is weak in several areas

In general I agree with you. But I think you're committing the fallacy illustrated by the following joke:

Two economists go walking down the street. One of them looks down and says, "is that a $100 bill on the sidewalk?". The other economist says, "it can't be, someone would have picked it up already", so they ignore it and walk on by.

Hollywood is controlled by a small number of corporate conglomerates, many of which have their hands in too many pies to keep track of. Their movies are largely stagnating, which is probably creating an opportunity for better movies to capture an outsized share of the market. Some day, some of those movies are going to come out and make a lot of money. Studios will scramble to react and get stuck in a newer and more different rut.

This is the same kind of cycle that Hollywood has gone through over and over again since the beginning. We're just in the trough of the cycle.

>but they're still picking from the menu of options the studio makes available.

They're often not, just choosing whatever gets more promoted.

"Nothing" is the common denominator of everything. Mass market movies are attempting to reach this perfect "nothing".

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