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Amazon lays off 500 Twitch employees, hundreds more at MGM and Prime Video

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46 pointsegnehots57 comments

Maybe I'm getting old and cranky, but the golden age of television was clearly 10 years ago. I'm hard-pressed to find any shows on streaming now that I like more than the ones I was watching back then (Justified, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, etc). Darker lighting and depressed characters do not a good show make.

And even if a streaming show starts with promise, you can almost guarantee now that it will be cancelled or the creators get bored of it before it ends.

The idea that corporations can treat entertainment like it's a mutual fund and throw money at content and some of it will be good enough is clearly failing. There's a race to the bottom to pump out these shows so quickly. Some of these projects are just starving for longer development time and more experienced involvement.

Definitely agree. Compare Daredevil to something like moon knight and you see a huge different. Sure the new Disney shows have a bigger budget and world famous actors but they’re kids shows with a gritty look at best and have 10% the depth.

Daredevil was released in 2015... yikes

Andor was incredible, it might be my all time favorite Star Wars thing ever. I hope they will produce more shows like that.

Andor was amazing for a Star Wars show.

It was barely average as a tv show.

Guess I am forever spoiled by The Expanse. Or just old and cranky, too.

I really should like the Expanse... but it never clicked for me. None of the characters were likable and everything was so cynical and miserable. I think I stopped after seasons 2. Should I keep going?

Probably not. I loved the Expanse, but I loved it from the beginning.

Give the books a read. They might feel familiar but they're different enough that a lot of book readers don't like the show due to the character portrayals

Cynical, miserable and gray is kinda the point, so it might not be your thing. I loved it from the start. Season 3 is the best of the series btw.

The new Echo show might be a good opportunity for a more 1:1 comparison.

I generally agree, but there have been some really great ones. For All Mankind (from Apple) is in my opinion fantastic, and I don't think could have been done well without a big budget. Also from Apple, Ted Lasso was very good.

Apple kind of an outlier here, they're purposefully trying to take over HBO's former role in media landscape as a prestige content brand and aren't as focused on ROI.

One of the things I do like about Apple is that even if a big budget show like See doesn't prove to be a hit, they don't immediately kill it and you get a conclusion to the story.

Apple put out quite a few good shows, For All Mankind, Severance, Invasion, even the soap opera-y The Morning Show is quite entertaining, Foundation is decent if you ignore that is not Asimov's story, it's its own thing.

They've acquired HBO's prestige from the past to me, meaning if they release something I will at least check it out because the chances of it being at least decent entertainment is quite high.

HBO still lingers with some quality shows but it's far away from their 90s-2000s days (The Wire, True Detective, Band of Brothers, etc.).

With all due respect, I think you might be getting old and cranky. Streaming services are all over the place, but in terms of actual content we are in the golden age of tv shows.

Streaming services enabled serious writers to work on tv shows. There are so many wonderful limited series that would’ve never happened in the olden days.

> we are in the golden age of tv shows.

I disagree.

> Streaming services enabled serious writers to work on tv shows.

There weren't serious writers in TV before?

https://www.economist.com/culture/2023/10/27/a-golden-age-of...

> Some of the people who helped to create tv’s golden age are downbeat about its future. hbo “died at 50”, Michael Fuchs, who ran the network in the 1980s, tells Mr Biskind. “There’s no longer an hbo.” A producer of “The Wire”, one of hbo’s grittiest and most celebrated shows, says the company would never make it today.

And The Wire had a notable hiatus between seasons 4 & 5 as the final fifth season wasn’t guaranteed. The show only really was lauded at a popular level after it'd already completed. No way a show like that gets past its first season in today's climate.

> There weren't serious writers in TV before?

To be fair kind of.. Before the 2000s were few shows had complex plots which developed over several episodes. Basically every episode basically had to work on a standalone basis. So compared to movies writing in tv shows was mediocre at best. Although I agree that we're probably past the peak (~2010 +- 10 years)

I think the thing I really miss is that episodes still had to work on a standalone basis. If you look at an episode of Mad Men or Breaking Bad, they still had a structure to them with an arc and multiple storylines in an episode. You had to be satisfied with a single episode for a whole week.

A single episode of The Mandalorian may literally have nothing happening and no memorable moments and only exists to be consumed between two other episodes.

True. Many modern "TV shows" can hardly be called such in the traditional sense. They are basically serialized (very long movies) and mainly an evolution of the mini-series format.

Maybe it's that the services themselves do not know how to market their own shows. When I log into Netflix all I see is endless trash. Amazon at least tries to show off their marquee shows (Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, Reacher - it doesn't help they are all mediocre).

Part of it is that Netflix is trash.

There is no benefit for Netflix to make great shows. They don't need to attract new viewers.

In fact, high quality shows with intricate and difficult story lines are a detriment to the slow drip sugar dose Netflix wants to give its viewers so they keep hitting "Play Next" and spending hours on their platform.

A good quality show is hard to get into but its also hard to keep binge watching it.

> Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, Reacher - it doesn't help they are all mediocre

Mediocre is a huge compliment for those shows though. Especially for the Rings of Power...

I agree with all of that, except that I really enjoy Reacher. And if you're a fan of the books, then it's good to see the main character played by someone so much truer to the original than Tom Cruise ever was.

Season 1 was pleasantly entertaining, even if the ending was a bit lame.

But Season 2 - man, I dunno. It's like they went with the first draft of a script and just shipped it.

Fair point.

I finished the season 2 finale this evening and it just ... ended. Still entertaining but whilst there was a final set-piece showdown and things were wrapped up okay, it felt like loads of episodes of digging around followed by a highly compressed surge of closure in the final episode. Similar to season one, though again I enjoyed both.

The limited series are the way we get good content, tv shows are mostly garbage due to the whole "if it's good we will increase the amount of seasons"

"1883" is really good. It's the best one I've seen in a while. TV took the reins of great storytelling from Hollywood then ran it off a cliff. FWIW I know I'm old and cranky.

Chernobyl, Last of Us, The Boys, Silo, Severance etc. would beg to differ

Television comes in waves.

Sopranos didn't overlap with either Justified or Breaking Bad. It premiered in 1999.

Breaking Bad had already finished in 2013, just slightly over 10 years ago.

You're pining for a time that doesn't really exist.

For me, it’s the explicit political messaging in almost every show that has ruined entertainment.

If I want someone to tell me what to think, I’ll watch CNN or Fox News.

I think the explicit political messaging in shows goes hand-in-hand with writing quality.

If you give writers complete creative control to write what they want, you will have scripts that are lazy and full of pet topics.

Star Trek TNG covered a lot of very political topics, but with a coyness that was earned. Compare that with modern Star Trek and it's... so on the nose.

You (we) are getting old and cranky. Sopranos was 25 years ago.

> I'm hard-pressed to find any shows on streaming now that I like more than the ones I was watching back then…

Recent shows I've seen (some of which are masterpieces) off the top of my head: Beef. For All Mankind. What We Do in The Shadows. Midnight Mass. Invincible. Reservation Dogs. Foundation. Cunk on Earth. Blue Eye Samurai. The Bear. The Boys/Gen V. Succession. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The Last of Us. Barry. Fargo. I Think You Should Leave. Slow Horses. Shrinking. Welcome to Wrexham. Star Wars: Ahsoka. The Mandalorian. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Ted Lasso. Loki. Arcane.

A lot of the shows you have listed were created by traditional networks (a lot of HBO and FX).

I haven't seen any of the Apple TV shows yet, but a lot of the other streaming ones I think prove my point. Mandalorian is okay. Loki is okay. (I Think You Should Leave is a good one though).

> even if a streaming show starts with promise, you can almost guarantee now that it will be cancelled

I was sad that Amazon's Night Sky with Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons didn't find an audience big enough for a season 2.

Dammit, you just ruined my day. I've been silently waiting for another season of Night Sky for over a year now.

There were great shows then and great shows now. The problem now is the good ones get lost in the sea of a million streaming services dishing out whatever they can to justify their cost, so it may just seem like it used to be better.

I think right now is a great time in TV but not if your idea of good TV is "a traditional style show where you can watch it over 5+ seasons as it rolls out for the remainder of the decade". Bingeworthy show drops of 3 or less seasons (think Westworld, The Queen's Gambit, or Chernobyl) are great it's just a matter of finding the ones you like. E.g. if you're not in the mood for a dark story then those are probably not great picks for you, but I'm hard pressed to say the ones you say you liked were any more cheery.

I've found a few. Queen's Gambit, Yellowstone - were quite good for me. Born in 81 so maybe not quite matured my cranky-ness. Stopped paying my (UK) license fee years ago. Netflix/Prime do tend to recycle a lot of stuff in the recommendation screens.

You’re just old. And maybe not looking in the right places? I find the sentiment is similar in many music scenes among older folk but there’s so many amazing modern bands in a plethora of genres that I can only assume their taste is hyper specific or they’re not looking correctly.

It ultimately depends on your taste, but a small snapshot from the last few years (x marks my favorites):

- Scavenger’s Reign

- Silo

- Mrs. Davis

- The Last of Us (x)

- 1899 (x)

- The Sandman (x)

- The Bear

- The Lazarus Project (S1 especially)

- Giri/Haji (x)

- Slow Horses

- From

- Severance (x)

- Invincible

- Alice in Borderland (x)

- Squid Game

- ZeroZeroZero (x)

- Good Omens

- Black Summer

I can share a separate list for the world of anime, which is also still going strong :)

Good list, I've got 1899, Silo on my list. And Severance (x) and From are my current favorite sci-fi/thrillers that are on going.

In terms of currently ongoing shows, I can recommend Toy Boy* (x) especially the Netflix revival seasons (3-5), And The Rehearsal (only s1 so far). And What We Do in the Shadows is pretty good too.

* Top Boy actually ended last fall.

I watched a few episodes from the revival, got confused, then watched a bit of the original but didn’t like it. But I’ll give it another shot.

I will also check out The Rehearsal - looks interesting.

I don’t know how I forgot What We Do in the Shadows - the best comedy airing right now imo.

If you end up liking Rehearsal you may enjoy Nathan for You, Nathan Fielder's previous show. Good mockumentary/reality comedy.

Top Boy s1 and s2 definitely are different. A dark and gritty feel to them, vs the more polished Netflix seasons. But s1 and 2 are both short. They provide some good background to see how the characters grew and the environment in which they grew up. In some ways Top Boy feels kind of like a UK version of American The Wire. I'd say S4 and S5 are top notch seasons. I liked how they ended s5. Definitely not a happily ever after type story.

I slowly started rewatching Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- still on going after like 16 or 17 seasons.

Damn and I thought it had ended. I think both it and Curb Your Enthusiasm are excellent comedy shows.

Have you watched Gomorrah? Top tier Italian crime drama, although it kinda drops off after season 3 from what I recall.

Curb was good. Havent seen the newest season.

Gomorrah, haven't but thanks for the suggestion, ratings look great. It'll go on top of my list.

For foreign stuff, I can recommend Persona (original title Sahsiyet) -- I got distracted so never finished, but it was well made and highly rated on imdb.

You have good taste in shows. You're welcome to message me, if you want, email in profile.

there are plenty of good tv shows but every good show there are 300 that are utterlyshit

Twitch public announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38939866

CNBC Prime Video and MGM Studios article (has the internal email at the end): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38939871

Everyone involved with Rings of Power right? The execs, showrunner, people actually responsible yeah?

Right...?

I completely forgot about that show. That's wild.

Throw in Wheel of Time while you're at it

I liked Rings of Power and I’m a huge Tolkien nerd and also generally cynical and hate most new shows. No idea why it gets such a bum wrap

they got a bonus

Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38933315 - Jan 2024 (397 comments)

Lots more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38933315

[dupe]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38942790

Where will all of these people go?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com