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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

#261

Bubbling customers in one or two genres of content with the addition of some "trending" original series that Netflix is pushing at the time. Their support suggests creating multiple profiles to avoid bubbling. You can't even delete/replace/reset main profile - just need to skip it all the time. Most of original content is just crap produced to fill the library. Netflix creates more and more titles, not watching mater…

It's seems clear to my family and friends that they have some sort of checklist for writers that includes garbage like mandatory regular sex scenes. In my case, they have _finished_ a tiny tiny percentage of their shows. They tend to string viewers along with contrived new-but-very-similar problems each season, and then just cancel once viewership gets bored. No thanks, give me a show that has an ending.

I think Disney has been better with their series in this regard. I've been watching a few shows that were planned with many seasons in mind, but instead of abruptly pulling the plug when viewership was lower than expected they gave them a final season that writers have been using to wrap things up really well. I can start a new show from them with a bit more confidence it'll get finished.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The idea that Netflix is failing because of identity politics is just ridiculous and doesn’t hold up to even the slightest examination. It’s just another reactionary talking point that feels right enough for people to not examine it.

My empirical evidence says otherwise. It is the primary reason I cancelled my subscription, and I've heard an awful lot of people complain about how every show has some forced social agenda. I suspect that Elon's tweet regarding Netflix, and the "woke" virus that has infected it, probably didn't help matters either. Say what you want about the guy, but he has a pretty massive amount of influence.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> over Netflix's depreciation models Amortization - Netflix treats content as assets, and recognizes on average 90% of amortized expenses in the four years after first broadcast. Net revenue looks better, but cash flow and balance sheets are still going to reflect outlays, which can often occur before first broadcast. The "Hollywood accounting" recognizes 90% of expenses in the first year to artificially reduce net p…

> Netflix can make a case that content continues to make an impact on subscription revenue over a larger window of time, and so expenses should equally be recognized in relation to the income statement. How many people are getting Netflix subscriptions to watch Bright (2017 Will Smith+Orc movie) this year? Or from a Disney perspective, how many people are getting Disney+ to watch Coco (2017 Day of the Dead 3d cartoon…

It’s even harder to account for because once you paid for D+ to watch Encanto or whatever, it now costs you nothing to rewatch Coco, but the ability to do so might be why you remain subscribed.

So where do you allocate the $8?

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

#264
post #21

This is starting to look like a generic problem for companies which are valued on the basis of future growth, but may have in fact reached their mature size. Suddenly they have to be priced as ongoing operating companies, which is based on revenue and profits right now. Facebook. Uber. Netflix. Tesla. They all do something that people will pay for, but they aren't going to get a lot bigger.

Not sure why you put Tesla in the list. They still grow substantially, just added two new large factories (Germany, Texas) and about to build another one (Indonesia).

Until a few months ago, Netflix was spaffing out content deals to support growth.(although they have announced a $250m deal with double negative animation.)

Everything is a genius growth model until its not.

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

#265

“Content is King” We all know this, Netflix knows this. And yet for some reason for years they have been aiming for quantity and not quality. Money is not enough in this department and baseball metaphors don’t do justice illustrating just how hard it is to put together a team that has that special thing going on. Some would argue it’s impossible - teams like the one behind Better Call Saul are just extremely rare and…

I agree that the content is not very interesting (to me at least), they still seem to produce a ton of it though. But companies like Disney, Paramount etc. building their own platforms and withdrawing their content from other streaming services makes it hard for Netflix to compete. Especially for families Disney+ is much more attractive due to their large catalog of AAA titles. Netflix just can't compete with that it seems, and all their self-produced movies were at most B+ in my opinion, not a single blockbuster there. I think right now Disney+ is well positioned to take the market lead, they just need to acquire a few more studios (and maybe Netflix itself) and they will have a moat that's impossible to penetrate. Personally I would hope that the market will consolidate, it's just annoying to have content I'm interested in spread out over 5-6 platforms, all requiring separate subscriptions.

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

#266

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I don't understand why this is so often presented as such a difficult to understand concept. People pay property taxes every year on assets that change in value without selling (ie unrealized gains). Nobody seems perplexed by that. But can't seem to figure out how it works for stocks. Regardless of if you agree or disagree with doing it (which I'm not pushing for or against here), it's not a complex concept.

Property taxes certainly have issues; they tax building improvements, but we want those, so we shouldn’t be incentivizing people to not improve their buildings. Land value tax is the proper way to go, questions of how to value land aside. The issue with a wealth tax is it’s inflationary - most taxes are deflationary but a wealth tax forces you to sell assets to get their cash from them. It does encourage rich people…

> The issue with a wealth tax is it’s inflationary

If it encourages people to undervalue, or lower the value of something, I don't see how that's inflationary. Could you explain how it would be inflationary?

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

#267
post #23
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.

I agree, milking shows usually ruins them. On the other hand, if they are great shows that last a long time you can gain a loyal audience. This seems to be how HBO has found so much success- Sopranos (never lost quality, even by the end), Curb, the Wire, etc. Although, GOT got milked out terribly. I think the hard part is just deciding which shows to drag on- and being based on a story that already has an ending help…

Some kid-oriented shows seem to get by just fine, albeit their story lines don't necessarily connect. Sponge Bob, and Big City Greens are two of my favorite kid shows with a ton of episodes. Maybe I just like kid shows...

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property taxes certainly have issues; they tax building improvements, but we want those, so we shouldn’t be incentivizing people to not improve their buildings. Land value tax is the proper way to go, questions of how to value land aside. The issue with a wealth tax is it’s inflationary - most taxes are deflationary but a wealth tax forces you to sell assets to get their cash from them. It does encourage rich people…

Couldn't you take loans against the value? I'm sort of assuming the wealth tax is a fraction of a percent, and that the burden would mostly be borne by high net worth individuals who could easily financialise their way out of small inconveniences.

Any tax on value is an eventual confiscation of the entire value given enough time, unless you have enough appreciation to outpace it (which likely is inflation).

There’s no way to borrow against a property to pay a 2% tax for mor than fifty years, for example. You need an outside source of funds, or appreciation.

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

#269
I highly recommend you check with your local/regional library to see what streaming services they will give you access to for free. My local library in Canada offers a couple of services that have a really interesting catalogue of films from all over the world as well as some recent classics.

This is not the latest and greatest, but much of the content is far more interesting.

The children's content on them is extremely good. If programming for kids is keeping you on Netflix, some of these (Kanopy, Hoopla) could easily eliminate your need for a paid subscription.

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

#270
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This view seems to be contradicted by the extent to which people binge-watch shows, which involves way more than 90 minutes of continuous contents.

Binging happens on your terms, you can stop and resume on smaller units of time (e.g. 1h for western tv shows, 20 min for anime). Worse case if you’re disrupted is you’d restart the eps you were on at a later and you’d lose less than an hour of watch time. Current movies go up to 3h… I see as the same paradox as people watching Tiktok shorts for hours. Yes, in aggregate it could be more than several movies stuck toge…

> you can stop and resume on smaller units of time

You can pause a movie? I don’t always watch a movie in one go.

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