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Comment by scyzoryk_xyz | Hacker News Reader

This would be the anti anti trust argument - that it's not studio vs studio, but it's type of screen-time vs other types of screen-time.

Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games? This was during the streaming wars IIRC.

Regardless of how you look at it, this is yet another confluence of IP franchises merging together, whatever juice is left in them squeezed out and reprocessed over and over over time. Kind of what Oracle is in software I guess?

Working in an adjacent entertainment IP focus business myself, my eyes are glazing over a bit at this point.

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> Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games? This was during the streaming wars IIRC.

Yea, and spending time with your friends and family, meeting new people, sleeping...

From [1]:

> “Think about if you didn’t watch Netflix last night: What did you do? There’s such a broad range of things that you did to relax and unwind, hang out, and connect—and we compete with all of that.”

When I read that interview, I became a lot more cautious of using Netflix and other streaming platforms, knowing their design is adversarial to my values (I want to be deliberate about what I watch, not be manipulated into mindless consumption).

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/40491939/netflix-ceo-reed-hastin...

Why do they even want you watching? Once the fee is paid isn’t it better you don’t watch kind of like the gym?

They need to keep you watching to a certain extent, otherwise you'd eventually question why you're subscribed in the first place.

This is the same argument from when Sirius and XM radio merged. It didn't matter that they were monopolizing satellite radio because the real competition was terrestrial radio and internet radio.

Yeah, it's a rhetorical maneuver that's as old as monopoly power when you think about it.

"Actually we're really David and we need to band together against Goliath." Points at imagined external threat

The part that's wild to me is that we know that this merger extends to politics and control over media. The IP's, studios, franchises, all the actual businesses are just part of the estate. It's the Hearst Media Empire story retold again.

From my perspective YouTube has quietly won the streaming wars. It has a vastly wider variety of content, especially for non-fiction shows. In the cases where there's more direct genre competition, I tend to prefer YouTube overall because, despite its offerings being generally lower budget, they tend to represent a wider variety of "editorial voices". There's a lot of outright slop to wade through, ofc, but there's also a lot of creative risk taking out there to discover.

Meanwhile, yeah, Paramount, Time Warner, Disney, etc. have all become so money-minded and risk-averse that it reminds me of the twilight days of the old Hollywood studio system, where all the major production companies were locked into a heated battle to determine who could be the absolute blandest.

> despite its offerings being generally lower budget, they tend to represent a wider variety of "editorial voices".

There's a huge amount of censorship with youtube though. The movies and shows on cable and streaming services can still talk about dead people without being forced to say they are "unalived". CNN can talk about a pandemic without calling it a "panini". Besides censoring specific words and phrases Youtube demonitizes entire genres of content along with anything that is "unfriendly" to advertisers. If that's the future of media in the US we're screwed.

I kind of agree, and it's interesting how Nebula and Spotify (at least their video efforts) have been based on elevating and funding those ultra-budget YouTube creators. Like I watch Lindsay Ellis and Practical Engineering and SkillUp all on non-YouTube platforms now, despite YouTube being the recommendation algorithm that originally brought me there.

It's really the opposite model of the "major" streaming players who fund tentpole releases in the conventional Hollywood way, and then have a long tail of niche content (cooking reality shows and the like) that are clearly on a much tighter budget, but still basically modeled on being a cheaper version of a cable show rather than a much better funded version of a YouTube comedy troupe.

I was just listening to an interview with an up and coming playwright, and he made an interesting point that he really doesn’t like how expensive live theater has become. I guess he has been deliberately targeting super low budget not-even-off-broadway venues because he felt that a big budget stifles creativity. The more money the production stands to lose, the more pressure there is to play it safe.

That kind of describes my relationship with Nebula. There’s a lot of great stuff on there, and lately I have been watching it more than YouTube. But still, YouTube is where I tend to go when I’m looking to find something new that I genuinely haven’t seen before. I think the lower floor for production values is a big part of that.

I would definitely encourage folks to seek out community theatre where you are. Not that I don't enjoy a full on broadway-style blowout every now and then, but it's also been shocking to me how much of the difference between a $40 seat and a $150 seat is pyrotechnics and spectacle that don't really make the experience for me.

The words and the performances, the chemistry and creativity of the actors, that's the real priceless stuff.

> Regardless of how you look at it, this is yet another confluence of IP franchises merging together, whatever juice is left in them squeezed out and reprocessed over and over over time. Kind of what Oracle is in software I guess?

Cantrill tried to, as diplomatically as possible, warn everyone.

Nobody listened.

> Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games?

Yes. He always told us that we don't need to worry about the other streamers nearly as much as we have to worry about them turning off the TV and playing games or (gasp!) going outside. TikTok/Instagram Reels wasn't a thing yet, but if it were, I'm sure they would have been on the list too.

“Being an adult is staring at medium screens all day to come home and stare at a little screen while a big screen is on in the background”

https://x.com/andlikelaura/status/1392091221032460291

Reed Hastings may be rich, but he is a fucking moron. By his logic the greatest threat to entertainment is people who parent without screens.

You're misinterpreting what "threat" means. And in fact he used the word "competition."

He was talking about the "incumbent" they are trying to displace. Netflix's challenge was not getting people to switch from watching Hulu to Netflix, but to get them not to sleep in order to watch Netflix.

Evil maybe, but nothing moronic about it.

But why? People not sleeping translates to negative profit and value to the company

Why would that be true?

That's not true. That's the point. It is the same thing as what Reed Hastings is saying. He thinks he is saying some deep insightful thing, and it's ridiculous. It's 200% wrong.

You all seem extremely confused about this statement. Go see it in context lol.

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