Netflix’s big power clash and rivalries behind the crash • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by ghaff » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:21 PM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #39

ghaff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Although most of those Netflix shows are on the far left of that category.

There are a lot of ways you can interpret the info and a lot of good questions that it doesn't really answer. But it is interesting that Netflix clearly looks different from others.

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

#62

Post by jfengel » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #7

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #2

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

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?

I read it as "I want there to be less content, but more content that appeals to me."

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

#63

Post by autoexec » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

omegalulw wrote: post #45

ghaff wrote: post #6

This chart [1] was making the rounds a while back. Whether you totally agree with its methodology or not, it certainly suggests that many people consider a huge swath of Netflix' content average at best. And for someone like me who doesn't watch a huge amount of video, that's not a great look. Tastes differ of course but my tastes aren't that out of the mainstream. And I'd rather a streaming service had a modest numb…

I don't know about other people, but finding something to watch on Netflix is frustrating, there's so much poor quality shows. The recommendations are not good (tbf that's most streaming services) and there's no option for granular filtering. For example, I hate dubs, I would like to pick shows where the original audio is some particular language, I don't get why that isn't there? In contrast, on HBO Max / Disney+, u…

I agree, netflix might be too embarrassed by their catalogue to show people a simple A-Z listing of everything they have, but I'd absolutely watch netflix more often if they did. Scrolling through the same shows I'm not interested in over and over across their multiple random/useless categories takes up way too much time.

Every so often I'll go to search and enter random 2-3 letter combinations because I usually find a bunch of stuff I'd like to see but Netflix has been hiding from me.

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

#64

Post by skippyboxedhero » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #34

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.

This isn't "insider reporting". If you don't how the media works, when the article says "Sources close to Holland" or a "Holland loyalist"...it is Holland (usually journalists will make an effort to disguise that, but the precise events being "quoted anonymously" here make obvious that the main source for the story was one person i.e. when the "anonymous" source quotes a conversation that occurred with two people in the room...it is obvious). There is no real analysis, it is just execs sniping at each other and trying to make sure future employers think it was someone else's fault.

On the subject, the problem with Netflix was that they tried to have it both ways. They seemed to think they could significantly increase output without decreasing quality. So saying that the failure of the new strategy is prudence ignores the fact that reckless spending got them into this position...bankruptcy tends to force prudence, but that is ex-post...prudence is not the cause of bankruptcy.

I think this should indicate that problems with NFLX are slightly more fundamental. I am sure they have the capacity to produce great shows. Look at their debt, look at how much capital they have committed to production...you can produce multiple "best ever" shows, and it won't get you out that hole.

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

#65

Post by dmitriid » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #56

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #53

If anyone from netflix is reading, the reason I don't watch as much as I used to is because of the automatic previews. I used to just leave netflix open all day and randomly pick things when I felt like watching. I can't do that anymore. Though I do really appreciate how easy it is to suspend/cancel. I'll be back for stranger things, but who knows how long I'll stay.

You can turn them off

And then you can't play trailers. Though Netflix insists on playing on random clips instead of trailers anyway.

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

#66

Post by brimble » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:25 PM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #41

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.

>that it shouldn't be permitted ... In other words, we want as many middlemen as possible in the chain?

I think it's a good idea to mitigate the downsides of the monopoly granted by copyright, when possible. We saw similar problems with studio ownership of movie theaters, and solved that by not letting studios own movie theaters (via an antitrust suit). That's only very recently, and in what may be the twilight of the movie theater itself, changed.

In the current environment, I suspect we'll see (are already seeing, to some extent) history repeat itself, but not do anything about it this time, because we're so skittish of regulating markets now.

I don't think you should have to own an extensive catalog of content to launch a streaming service. Nor that you should effectively have to grovel for the patronage of one of a handful of integrated production+distribution mega corporations to undertake production of new media. But that's rapidly where the market's heading, and I don't see any mechanism to change that course short of anti-trust action.

There are, as usual, some benefits to the rents the current monopolistic system produces (extra cash sloshing around to throw at projects, for example—extra R&D money is a typical benefit monopolies produce, and in this case, because the monopolies are on particular content rather than on all content [so far—Disney's getting alarmingly close], there remain incentives to actually spend that money on, if you will, R&D, or the closest thing to it in media production) but at the cost reduced competition on cost & quality, and of making it much harder to enter the market, for new players.

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

#67

Post by autoexec » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

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).

> Providers seem to think I want a huge unsearchable library from which they will make recommendations.

Providers want to act as gatekeepers who have the power to make something popular by limiting your options to alternatives. Sometimes they also want to be able to accept money for heavily promoting specific things over others. It's not about delivering a quality product to you at all, it's about what gives them money/power at your expense.

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

#68

Post by dmitriid » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #54

Netflix created the bad but successful template that the other streaming services followed: own the streaming platform and the content -- and now they're suffering for it, and so are consumers. As a consumer, I don't want to have 5 different streaming services with subs coming and going depending on what shows happen to be in season. I'd rather choose to subscribe to one of various streaming services that in turn let…

> Netflix created the bad but successful template that the other streaming services followed: own the streaming platform and the content

Netflix was basically forced into this template when major content owners started pulling out and creating their own services.

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

#69

Post by gordon_freeman » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #53

If anyone from netflix is reading, the reason I don't watch as much as I used to is because of the automatic previews. I used to just leave netflix open all day and randomly pick things when I felt like watching. I can't do that anymore. Though I do really appreciate how easy it is to suspend/cancel. I'll be back for stranger things, but who knows how long I'll stay.

I have to agree on that - it seems like forcing a show/movie to a user even if that does not align with their mood or historic picks. I am not interested at all in shows like Inventing Anna or Tinder Swindler or Selling Sunset but I have to still cope with them showing that moving banner ad like that covering so much real estate.

What I would like to see is, semantic search where I could elaborate the shows/movies I'd like to search for: "A classic movie starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg" and Netflix shows me "War of the Worlds" in search results.

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

#70

Post by ghaff » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:30 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #52

brundolf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different strokes I guess; I thought Severance was great. I didn't even notice the sequences you're describing, but I guess in hindsight they added flavor/gave me a mental break to process recent plot developments

Severance does not have the drunk/high sequences, but it was just crazy slow for me. I might also just be an atypical watcher, but it still feels like a lot of shows/movies are a lot longer than they used to be when I was a kid, and yet the extra minutes do not give me any extra enjoyment. Or maybe I am just getting old and turning into my dad.

What is almost certainly true is that a lot of shows are more serialized than when you were a kid given that serial was mostly bad for a number of reasons in the broadcast era.

So most shows were pretty much 30-60 self-contained minutes with relatively little prior context needed. If you're going to tell a story over 8 hours or even several seasons, various aspects of the pace are going to be a lot slower.