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Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

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Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#161

Post by shmerl »

WatchDog wrote: post #114
shmerl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so there's no ethical shell game being played Netflix has some shady stuff like DRM going on, while pretending it's not their fault it was pushed into HTML standard.

What do you mean by they pretend it's not their fault? They seem to be very open about it, even boasting about their DRM work on their blog[1]. As unethical as DRM may be, I don't think Netflix have been dishonest about their involvement with it. https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/html5-video-at-netflix-7...

In the past, when there were discussions in W3C about it, and Netflix were blamed for bringing that garbage in, they were saying it's not their fault but they are forced by publishers.

And this claim is a pile of trash:

> This is a requirement for any premium subscription video service.

DRM isn't a requirement. It's pushed by paranoid media execs, and Netflix should have control over it for their own video.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#162

Post by CaptSpify »

SapphireSun wrote: post #144
CaptSpify wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's free to distribute. So instead of charging customers for distribution, they should be charging customers the up-front cost of production.

I'm not against this, but it goes against the grain of a capitalist economy as it does not maximize overall profits. For this concept to work at scale, we might need to rejigger the whole economy.

and?

Just because our economic models are out of date doesn't mean we need to change the way we behave to keep shoe-horning them in. It means we need to change our models to reflect reality.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#163

Post by briga »

sambe wrote: post #156
briga wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's even harder to wrap my head around is that according to this survey around 15% of people at Netflix think they're not compensated fairly. What do they want? 400k? 500k? Would a salary of a million dollars a year be enough?

If you worked at Netflix and everyone around you made a million whilst you made half a million, you might give such an answer on a survey, and it probably wouldn't change with the absolute amounts.

That's something that worries me about moving down to Silicon Valley. It seems like everyone there is envious of how much their neighbors and co-workers make, regardless of how much they happen to be making. I want to avoid falling into that trap--it seems like a recipe for unhappiness.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#164

Post by jedrek »

nostrademons wrote: post #66
brailsafe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is true, as someone who is unemployed and doesn't watch Netflix, I can't even wrap my head around that number. On the other hand, I'm kind of happy to see that they're making real money by charging real money (unlike others where your information is the only product) and passing that on to the people who make it good.

They have 100M+ subscribers who each pay ~$10/month. That's a billion dollars a month , or $12B/year. $12B/year can pay for a lot of $300K/year salaries. (Most people have trouble wrapping their heads around just how huge consumer markets are. If you have 300M users - a la Whatsapp when Facebook acquired them - and charge them just $1/year, that's $300M/year in revenue, or enough to afford 1000 $300K/year engineers […

> $300M/year in revenue, or enough to afford 1000 $300K/year engineers [or actually more like 1000 $200K/year engineers once you figure in overhead].

I think you're massively underestimating overhead. Each person who works on a product should make a max of 15-25% of what they bring in. If you have a repair shop and you charge $100/h, you should be paying your techs $15-25.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#165

Post by imustbeevil »

shmerl wrote: post #159
ksk wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if a lot of people were willing to pay more for DRM-free, or if people avoided DRM'ed content, it would make business sense to do that. Its easier to effect change from the bottom up, than demanding a company change their policies just because you disagree with them. For example, EMI experimented with selling their entire catalog DRM-free on itunes for 30 cents more per track in 2007. I don't think it turned out…

What makes sense is to offer an option instead of saying "we know better what you should want, so we won't offer it". Music sells just fine DRM-free on Bandcamp. Games sell fine DRM-free on GOG. So I don't see any reason for films to be different. Lack of DRM-free video has nothing to do with lack of demand, but more with paranoia and backwards thinking of some legacy media execs. See https://www.gog.com/forum/genera…

Developer of The Banner Saga when asked if the second game would be on GOG.

> sadly once we released DRM Free for The Banner Saga we saw our game get pirated like wildfire. Which is something we're keen to avoid as much possible. We haven't given it much thought at this point to be honest when it comes to GoG.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/281640/discussions/0/39218452...

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#166

Post by shmerl »

imustbeevil wrote: post #165
shmerl wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes sense is to offer an option instead of saying "we know better what you should want, so we won't offer it". Music sells just fine DRM-free on Bandcamp. Games sell fine DRM-free on GOG. So I don't see any reason for films to be different. Lack of DRM-free video has nothing to do with lack of demand, but more with paranoia and backwards thinking of some legacy media execs. See https://www.gog.com/forum/genera…

Developer of The Banner Saga when asked if the second game would be on GOG. > sadly once we released DRM Free for The Banner Saga we saw our game get pirated like wildfire. Which is something we're keen to avoid as much possible. We haven't given it much thought at this point to be honest when it comes to GoG. https://steamcommunity.com/app/281640/discussions/0/39218452...

Which is a pretty clueless response. Avoiding GOG will only increase such pirating (by decreasing legal sources for the game). Developers should know better.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#167

Post by kerbalspacepro »

will_hughes wrote: post #19
imustbeevil wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can Netflix survive if you're able to pay $15 and download every video they have?

Someone who's going to pirate can readily get all of that content from various sources already. I highly doubt that anyone has been persuaded to buy a Netflix subscription because of Netflix's use of DRM. As for 'shady' -- well, not a word I'd necessarily use, but there's plenty of examples where DRM has blocked access to legitimately purchased content.

Netflix isn't using DRM for the customers, its using DRM for the content providers. It isn't there job to fix the rest of the Internet

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#168

Post by imustbeevil »

shmerl wrote: post #166
imustbeevil wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developer of The Banner Saga when asked if the second game would be on GOG. > sadly once we released DRM Free for The Banner Saga we saw our game get pirated like wildfire. Which is something we're keen to avoid as much possible. We haven't given it much thought at this point to be honest when it comes to GoG. https://steamcommunity.com/app/281640/discussions/0/39218452...

Which is a pretty clueless response. Avoiding GOG will only increase such pirating (by decreasing legal sources for the game). Developers should know better.

> Avoiding GOG will only increase such pirating (by decreasing legal sources for the game).

Until you provide a single source you're not saying anything worth responding to.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#169

Post by shmerl »

imustbeevil wrote: post #168
shmerl wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a pretty clueless response. Avoiding GOG will only increase such pirating (by decreasing legal sources for the game). Developers should know better.

> Avoiding GOG will only increase such pirating (by decreasing legal sources for the game). Until you provide a single source you're not saying anything worth responding to.

Not sure how those developers measured piracy in general.

But piracy is naturally increased by limiting legal sources for buying something. Other developers commented on this very issue, saying that existing DRM increased piracy.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#170

Post by imustbeevil »

shmerl wrote: post #169
imustbeevil wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Avoiding GOG will only increase such pirating (by decreasing legal sources for the game). Until you provide a single source you're not saying anything worth responding to.

Not sure how those developers measured piracy in general. But piracy is naturally increased by limiting legal sources for buying something. Other developers commented on this very issue, saying that existing DRM increased piracy.

I'm not going to continue this off topic conversation.
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