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Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

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Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#61

Post by Guthur »

bumper_crop wrote: post #35
harha wrote: post #28

Netflix really had a value proposition a few years ago before all the other players came in. A good selection of rotating movies and shows, sharing accounts with a good model (# of simultaneously running screens). This was way better than cable TV and more convenient than torrent. Now it’s mostly quite mediocre content across services that easily cost $100+ a month, so we’re back to the old cable days in terms of cos…

>The consumers just aren’t complete idiots. The consumers kinda are the idiots here. They know what they like, but they have no idea why the content is getting worse. Why shows are being pulled. Companies that had their content on Netflix realized they were facing an existential crisis. Ever played Settlers of Catan and find out another player had 9/10 victory points? Everyone does everything in their power to not tr…

That's not stupid consumers that's people not rightly giving a f what nonsense licensing setups requested by ip owners and enforced by a government monopoly on force. The consumer just wanted to watch the media, which is fair because they probably just spent 8 hours at some nonsense unnecessary job and would like to switch off... again.

No vote no power.

Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#62

Post by bumper_crop »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #59
bumper_crop wrote: post #8

It doesn't help that Netflix stands on principle and blocks all accounts in Russia, one of their major sources of subscriber growth. America, while being the most lucrative market, was already pretty saturated. Cutting off the countries with huge growth makes it extremely difficult to keep growing paying customers. But, principle comes first at Netflix, to the chagrin of their stock holders and employees.

Russia is tiny in the overall number of subscribers, it is not an explanation for the hude drop in the stock price. Also the recent Netflix content shows it does not stand on principle, it is highly politicized.

It is small, but that's not what you should look at. The Derivative in subscribers matters way more (since Netflix is a growth company), and Russia was nearly doubling in subs each year.

Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#63

Post by MauroIksem »

walrus01 wrote: post #45
harha wrote: post #28

Netflix really had a value proposition a few years ago before all the other players came in. A good selection of rotating movies and shows, sharing accounts with a good model (# of simultaneously running screens). This was way better than cable TV and more convenient than torrent. Now it’s mostly quite mediocre content across services that easily cost $100+ a month, so we’re back to the old cable days in terms of cos…

I know a number of people who have just gone back to torrenting everything they care about (such as For All Mankind or Foundation) and are very unlikely to ever subscribe to a 2nd, 3rd, 4th streaming service. They either picked netflix and have stayed with it at $22/mo or have changed from netflix to 1 other service like paramount+ or whatever, but the idea of paying $50-60-80 a month for more services on top of thei…

This is basically me. I have the 15 dollar tier of Netflix and then my friends and i share a Plex hosted at a buddy's house where we get whatever content we want.

Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#66

Post by makeitdouble »

jmyeet wrote: post #16

So the problem with media conglomerates (including big studios) is they want predictable returns. More specifically, they want a formula. Let me introduce you to Save the Cat [1]. This book has become so influential that you can read this book and then watch pretty much any movie and you'll be able to tick off everything in the movie to this structure. It's why studios love sequels and franchises. They have a built-i…

I kinda wonder how long movies will continue make economic sense, at all.

What we call movies are 1h30 or more of continuous contents, and in this day and age this becomes an increasingly long time to be stuck in one place doing one thing. If it’s a full hobby, like pottery or bordering why not, but for “casual” people I feel the proposition is less and less attractive.

Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#67

Post by Supermancho »

bumper_crop wrote: post #38
carlmr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's a problem. Watching a whole season makes you more invested in the show, so you're pissed off when it gets cancelled. I also agree with OP that encouraging binge watching is not good. Netflix pumped out more content than any cable TV package I've ever had in the past, but by allowing binge-watching people binge and then get bored and say Netflix has no content. If they spread out these shows it would be hea…

> But that's a problem. Watching a whole season makes you more invested in the show, so you're pissed off when it gets cancelled. This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be. Netflix is trying to create a new [better] experience, and this is how they are going about it. Pilots of shows suck! Almost always the second episode the characters are more realisti…

People have limited time and investing in a storyline is not free.

> This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be.

Or people aren't conditioned to care about what the idiotbox tells them at all. They are simply upset that something they like is being summarily made unavailable, like any other product.

Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#68

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

mountainriver wrote: post #27
thrill wrote: post #2

The quoted "competing exec" is 100% wrong when he says Netflix is making a mistake ending shows after three seasons. Shows need to be pitched and run for three seasons max, period. Everyone has a life other than the show that's "hot" for the moment, from cast to writers to the source of money - the viewers. Shows that get dragged out inevitably suck. And yeah, go to weekly releases.

How about the show keeps going for as long as it’s good? Arbitrary time boxes on shows seems silly, some shows are great for 10+ seasons, would suck to lose that because we decided that wasn’t possible

The problem with American TV is that almost everything is unbounded. Some shows manage to keep things going. Others jump the shark.

It’s not that having 10 seasons is bad. But many shows tell the story they wanted to tell in much less time. At which point you should just stop.

Some formats are interesting though like American Horror Story. It’s more like an anthology. Different story each season. Some actors might return with different roles.

Dr Who is also interesting since the mechanism for “reboots” is built in to the character.

Or go the Disney route and expand the individual character stories like they are doing with Marvel and Star Wars.

Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#69

Post by danhak »

arrosenberg wrote: post #54
daenz wrote: post #53

>Its stock price collapsed by more than 35 percent Wednesday, erasing more than $50 billion in value in a single day. For people who want to be able to tax unrealized gains like stock, what is the plan for these kinds of events? Would stockholders receive a credit from the IRS when the valuation dips?

The holders would pay less in taxes when the valuation drops, why would they get a credit? Also, the only people who would be subject to those taxes are already extraordinarily wealthy, so who cares?

Because the policy will bankrupt founders.

Imagine you're the founder of NFLX and you held $1 billion worth of stock at the peak last year ($690 / share)

The IRS says you owe $300 million (30% of your unrealized gains)

Fast forward to spring 2022. The stock has crashed to $186, your shares are worth only $270 million but you owe a $300 million tax bill.

Not to mention the impossible situation this creates for corporate governance and the general functioning of a business when founders / board members are constantly forced to divest and therefore no one can know who will even control the company from quarter to quarter.

Re: Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

#70

Post by eyelidlessness »

mullingitover wrote: post #57

I helped drive that subscriber loss! The mistake for Netflix was the price increase - I've had a bunch of online video subscriptions kicking around, and when I got the notification that prices were going up, it served as a reminder that I really wasn't getting much value out of Netflix at the current price, so it made zero sense to put up with a price increase. This actually made me cancel Hulu while I was at it. It…

> I helped drive that subscriber loss!

> […]

> when I got the notification that prices were going up, it served as a reminder that I really wasn't getting much value out of Netflix at the current price

A perfectly reasonable reaction. Netflix is still generally my primary streaming service, but mainly because the others are either a terrible UX for my setup (Hulu), won’t ever get me as a customer for ethical reasons (Amazon), or have content/catalog models like Netflix, only smaller catalogs (basically everything else that isn’t a cable provider).

Netflix becoming a studio was great when it still offered licensed content I love. I could watch their originals and my favorites and things I’d put off watching. Now it feels like I have an HBO subscription I never asked for, where the only thing they offer is original content I don’t want to sift through to find out if it’s worthwhile.

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