Companies have strong incentives to mix and match two paradigms of employment/compensation, such that they get the best of both, and their employees suffer the worst of both.
In one paradigm, people are paid per productivity unit. In the other, people are paid a set amount per time period but are required to perform above some minimum threshold.
They tend towards the latter paradigm outside of specialized scenarios... so the hope is that someone performs well above the minimum and perhaps even at some extraordinary level in this second paradigm. But the pay does not increase for the employee if he or she does overperform.
However, the minimum performance is rarely spelled out, and can (and does) increase without employees being aware that this has happened. Regardless though, the pressure is to demand that employees work in a way that would only make sense if they were paid-per-unit. That is to say, constantly, and with the minimum amount of rest that they must have without being injured or dying of exhaustion (maybe without even that!).
This is bad enough if your work is pulling onions out of the ground by hand (a job that I remember reading is sometimes paid-per-unit). It is far worse for someone salaried, working something semi-creative. I don't know that the drugs exist that might make me able to focus only on work for 8 or 9 hours at a stretch, day-in and day-out. I have my good days when I look up and its 5pm, and I never let go of a problem the entire time. And then there are the mornings where I flounder about, not even sure where to start.
Bonuses for those who can do it seem rare to non-existent. So those that can drive themselves that way are often angling for promotion, sometimes for positions that aren't even available.
They want the productivity from A, but to pay the wages of B. I don't think this is some conspiracy... they don't even realize they're doing this, when they do it. If they were that self-aware, they might start to wonder what happens when exhaust the supply of what is a rare and difficult-to-acquire resource. They can't make more of it. And once it's used up and gone, business will eventually take a big hit.
But, as un-self-aware as they are, and given the timetables involved (it can take years for the consequences to rear their heads), they'll chalk it up irrationally in their heads as that things beyond their control changed to make the business unviable. Supposing of course, that any of the original management is still there to worry. One might think it would almost be better to be managed by supervillains than by buffoons.
So, to answer your question... the problem with Netflix and hot dog eating is that if an employee is doing that, then they aren't performing at the maximum theoretical output. They're not constantly working at that level.