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Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

hollywoodreporter.com

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Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#31

Post by ghaff »

cgriswald wrote: post #22
whoisjuan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That graph isn’t showing that. Sure, Netflix produces way more content than competitors but they also have more shows in the far right (outstanding and exceptional) than their competitors.

There is a disconnect between what I want and what providers are trying to offer me. I want quality content with powerful search. Providers seem to think I want a huge unsearchable library from which they will make recommendations. Netflix has lots and lots of great original content, but given a random show, it's far more likely to be average or less (versus, say, HBOmax).

On the other hand, a lot of people are fine with putting unremarkable content on as largely background noise. That's what a lot of broadcast TV was. So there's probably at least some market for a large catalog of OK stuff rather than more of a focus on prestige TV.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#32

Post by mikkergp »

ghaff wrote: post #24
brimble wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ratio of OK-or-worse to good-or-exceptional sure appears to be a less favorable for Netflix than the others. Though people's rankings seem crazy to me. Apparently just producing a Star Wars thing and not totally shitting the bed in the process counts as "exceptional". Then again... yeah, that's kinda true, I guess. From a certain point of view. Still, better than nearly all shows on all those services? Yikes. I d…

Hence my comment about the methodology. And HBO Max doesn't have anything that's exceptional? For that reason, it doesn't really make sense to focus on the specifics of a handful of outliers as unreliably ranked by RT (I think). The real message is that large as Netflix' catalog is, it doesn't necessarily have a lot more highly ranked content than other sites have. (Which roughly squares with my anecdotal impressions…

But doesn't this? Medthodology aside, taking the data as is, Netflix has like 30 programs outstanding or better. The next best is like 10. Weird about HBO Max though. Maybe because they don't consider HBO shows as 'streaming'. At least Succession should be in exceptional. If not a lot more, if you include the older work.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#33

Post by bradstewart »

zbuf wrote: post #26
brimble wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should happen, if we're doing "shoulds", is that it shouldn't be permitted for one company to own both distribution and production, nor for such companies to create long-term exclusivity agreements with one another.

No need to mandate it, Netflix should have realised the end game of competing with their own suppliers.

They did realize it. The end game was that their suppliers would stop supplying to take more profit for themselves.

So they the only thing they could and started producing content.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#34

Post by sytelus »

This is great insider reporting! Most people have no clue how shows gets selected and blame “wokness” for troubles at Netflix. In reality, the cost-cutting high-volume risk-averse leadership took over initial leadership of opposite nature. Transition from “ gut-driven, risktaking, maverick culture” to “prudent and frequently indecisive” is exactly the story of many other areas. Well put.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#35

Post by usrn »

lnsru wrote: post #13
usrn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think services like YouTube are going to win out. For every hour of video I've watched on Netflix or Hulu I've probably watched 40 on Youtube. The variety of content there is absolutely incredible and so much of it is very deep educational content.

I hate YouTube for their recommendation system. I watch few things and then get million recommendations of the same thing by different author. I don’t want that, I want to see other topics and must actively search for them.

I exclusively use YouTube in private mode to avoid the pigeonholing.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#36

Post by runevault »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #2

Apple should buy Netflix and combined they should focus on only few, extremely high quality shows.

We need more companies not less. This is an awful idea. Frankly I wish we'd see what happened theaters back in the day happen and not allowing creators to be their own distributors. Yes Netflix would have to stop creating content, but it would at least somewhat mitigate this current world where everyone creates their own streaming service.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#37

Post by francisofascii »

sliken wrote: post #14
izacus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want even more consolidation? The other content owners (Disney, WB, etc.) have already pulled all their content from 3rd parties (including Netflix) to destroy competition. Why is there so many people on HN that want less market competition and cheer when corporations consolidate?

Because people want to watch the leading shows in their area of interest and not have to pay 10+ services $10-$20 a month. As it gets increasingly hard/expensive, not to mention the bickering between services and platforms and services and markets to watch them on, customers are resorting to piracy as a way to get the content they want.

Agree with this sentiment, but if they consolidate, the price may go from $10-20/month to $20-40/month. And then we are back to cable.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#38

Post by bawolff »

dfxm12 wrote: post #29
whoisjuan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That graph isn’t showing that. Sure, Netflix produces way more content than competitors but they also have more shows in the far right (outstanding and exceptional) than their competitors.

Right. I don't care about the shows/movies I don't want to watch on a streaming service. I only care if there are enough shows/movies on there I do want to see.

I also don't want to spend large amounts of time researching what i want to watch. If there is one good show with poor discoverability burried under a mountain of crap, that is still a product failure.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#39

Post by ChrisLomont »

ghaff wrote: post #18
whoisjuan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That graph isn’t showing that. Sure, Netflix produces way more content than competitors but they also have more shows in the far right (outstanding and exceptional) than their competitors.

They don't really have that many more shows well out to the right; it's mostly a draw. (And at that point you're talking pretty small numbers.) But it's pretty clear from the graph that, as a percentage of their total shows, more Netflix shows are just OK than the other services. (Now if the bulk of that is very cheap drek to boost the size of the catalog, that's OK I guess. But I doubt that it is.)

>They don't really have that many more shows well out to the right; it's mostly a draw.

Netflix has significantly more in the outstanding category: for example, I count around 8 for Disney, 11 for Apple, 10 for HBO Max, 8 for Hulu, and at least 39 for Netflix. I don't know how you call that a draw.

And I don't really care about the average show, since I (and I suspect most others) are not uniformly randomly sampling movies to watch with zero input from others. I (and I suspect others) watch those that are rated as good movies, and in that case, Netflix is crushing the competition by the numbers in that chart.

Netflix, by that chart, provides a lot more shows rated good, outstanding, and exceptional.

Re: Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash

#40

Post by lotsofpulp »

ghaff wrote: post #9
AlbertCory wrote: post #3

> One of Holland’s last projects for Netflix was The Queen’s Gambit, an expensive period piece that sources say was mocked as “Holland’s Folly” by some in-house. According to sources, Bajaria and her staff were dismissive and even unpleasant to the team that worked on it. What a hellscape to work in. I got on Netflix very briefly, just to watch that show. I can't think of any reason to get back on.

Oh I loved The Queen's Gambit and thought the format was perfect too. However, I can easily see why a producer might have passed on a pitch.

I dislike this format because it makes a 4 hour story into an 8 hour story where 4 hours of it is showing the character in some type of inebriated state. I think flight attendant did this too, and the only reason I can think of is to pad their statistics and it being cheap to film those sequences. But it just ends up boring me.

And all the content producers are doing it. I tried Severance on Apple TV+, and I had to stop after 4 episodes because nothing was happening, and this is supposed to be a critically acclaimed show.

The new Batman movie was excruciatingly long too. I miss my 100min stories from the early 2000s and before.

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