Netflix's New Chapter • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#61

Post by andsoitis » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

enumjorge wrote: post #12

Sort of an aside question, but the article praises Hastings ability to execute: > To say that Hastings excelled at execution is a dramatic understatement; indeed, the speed with which the company rolled out its advertising product in 2022[...] is a testament that Hastings’ imprint on the company’s ability to execute remains. Is there a place where one could read details on what made him so great at execution?

Two readings:

* Netflix Culture (originated and articulated by Reed): latest version at jobs.netflix.com/culture

* No Rules Rules (book he co-wrote). In essence it is about how the aspirational / North Star culture maps to the day to day experiences of people who work there

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#62

Post by panick21_ » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #21

zamadatix wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is how e.g. Disney+ is losing so much money. It's Disney's content, has an enormous userbase, and somehow is bleeding billions?

> It’s Disney’s content That is partly the problem. You spend hundreds of millions to make blockbuster movies and then release it on Disney+ in a few months for free (or sometimes directly). That costs money. Add to that over reliance on only Disney content creates two problems: 1. You can’t have enough new content every month, subscribers therefore don’t keep the subscription year round. 2. You have to pay money to…

In theories those movies should make most of their money back in the movies. Otherwise the finances don't work out.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#63

Post by mardifoufs » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #47

phphphphp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Content is expensive to produce. Disney+ is not just a streaming platform for existing Disney content, rather, Disney produce content for it. Likewise, Netflix spends most of its money on content, operating the actual platform is comparatively cheap.

Yeah, D+ is churning out an enormous volume of what would be considered prestige content at other services. All the Star Wars and Marvel shows are star-studded and larded with top-tier visual effects. And some of them aren't really getting a lot of viewers from what the rumors say.

That's why it's so surprising imo. Disney+ has a very wide and deep catalog of pre-existing IP, and I would have imagined that most subscribers care more about that than any future original production. So it's weird to see them invest so much in new content, more so than competitors that have a much weaker, smaller catalog. Especially when the content is made exclusively for Disney+.

But I'm almost certainly completely wrong, and I'm sure they have tons of data justifying their investment in new content. I guess I'm biaised since I pay for Disney+ so that my little sister can use it, and original shows weren't important to my decision to subscribe at all.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#64

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

me_me_me wrote: post #43

jedberg wrote: post #3

Netflix only lost to Blockbuster because Blockbuster didn't believe in online anything strongly enough to properly fund it. Blockbuster had the better network and better penetration, and even had equally good technology. But corporate didn't want to fund them to hire the next set of engineers they needed. Blockbuster would have won if their board had been just slightly more forward looking. And Netflix knew it.

Google has massive range and tons of way to push their services onto users, and google+ failed miserably. Resources are not guarantee of success.

I'm convinced that what killed Google+ was their slow rollout, which was an absolutely bone-headed move that I'm really surprised a company like Google would make.

Google+ was a social network. For a social network to have any value, you need your friends to be on it as well. By making it invite-only and throttling how many people could join, they guaranteed that most of your friends weren't there and COULDN'T be there. There were so many memes being made of Google+ being described as this amazing party you got invited to, only to get there and find there's nobody there.

GMail being invite-only at first wasn't a problem because using GMail didn't require everybody you sent/received e-mails to/from to be on GMail as well.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#65

Post by lubujackson » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

no_wizard wrote: post #7

I'm gonna attempt to break this down: - Netflix has 5-6 Billion USD free cash flow, and because they got what debt they do have under favorable terms, they are positioned to retain most of that free cash flow - Disney, Comcast (Peacock), CBS/Viacom and other media corporations are saddled with debt, and are all losing money on their own independent streaming businesses. Likely untenable in their shareholder model - T…

Seems like the logical endgame is Netflix buying up and aggregating these legacy content producer/channels, possibly piecemeal. There are too many walled gardens right now and they will likely into 3 or 4 key players (say Netflix, HBO and Disney) with everyone else getting gobbled up.

Then everyone has 3 channels on their TVs and we start the explode/aggregate cycle again, just like what happens to banks and telcos.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#66

Post by nkingsy » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #58

darth_avocado wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s Disney’s content That is partly the problem. You spend hundreds of millions to make blockbuster movies and then release it on Disney+ in a few months for free (or sometimes directly). That costs money. Add to that over reliance on only Disney content creates two problems: 1. You can’t have enough new content every month, subscribers therefore don’t keep the subscription year round. 2. You have to pay money to…

That’s not entirely true. Disney+ is partially losing money because of “transfer payments”. Disney+ has to “pay” Disney studios the market rate for the right to stream a movie. Of course the money mostly flows up to Disney. But from an accounting standpoint, Disney+ can’t say it’s profitable by getting movies for free from Disney studios and cause Disney studios to lose potential profits they could have made elsewher…

Octonauts would like to have a word

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#67

Post by karaterobot » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

no_wizard wrote: post #7

I'm gonna attempt to break this down: - Netflix has 5-6 Billion USD free cash flow, and because they got what debt they do have under favorable terms, they are positioned to retain most of that free cash flow - Disney, Comcast (Peacock), CBS/Viacom and other media corporations are saddled with debt, and are all losing money on their own independent streaming businesses. Likely untenable in their shareholder model - T…

> - Therefore, Netflix needs to do what it can to retain / attract subscribers, but essentially can wait until the other services have to give up due to cost

Good summary. Worth noting as well that he spends a lot of time in the article drawing the historical parallel to Blockbuster. The lesson is that Netflix has been in this situation before, of waiting for its competition to punch themselves out.

Personally, I think it's impossible to really predict the future for stuff like this, but it's an interesting read.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#68

Post by matwood » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #39

matwood wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good summary. Couple notes/IMOs... HBO Max is great, but it's tied to a terrible management/company anchor. Rumor is now they are going to drop the trusted HBO brand smh. Netflix is well positioned, but a player like Disney is also setup to acquire other streamers as they fall over from cost structure issues. I think we're about to see mass consolidation. Finally, I'm kind of sad that I think the content 'golden era'…

Disney is currently suffering under a load of debt from their Fox acquisition. I'm not sure going on a spending spree is in their favor. With Netflix's low debt load and free cash flow, they should actually be in a better position for buying up competitors.

No one is going on a spending spree right now. But, if someone asked me after consolidation who would be the last ones standing, it would be Netflix and Disney.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#69

Post by agentwiggles » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #53

I wonder if the time isn't ripe for a kind of "meta" service. Essentially, one group provides the content, branding, some kind of licensing data structure describing date ranges and countries, and so on. An abstracted look and feel. Another service spits out the app and has the streaming infrastructure. The apps produced would have the benefit of reaching many, many platforms and so deduplicate a lot of the work gett…

This is kinda like what Amazon does with their channels, which is a bit clunky in various ways, but on the whole I don't hate the model. (besides the fact that the increasing fragmentation of content means I have to have a dozen subscriptions).

What I really want is some sort of meta "subscription manager" where I could mark what I'm currently watching and what I always want access to, and it could manage cancelling and uncancelling the various subscriptions that I have. Even better if it could just give me access to everything through a unified interface. I would pay for this - I think it could save a lot of money.

What I've been doing recently is whenever I sign up for a new thing, I just immediately cancel. That way when I hit the end of the month and I'm not using Peacock or Shudder or whatever other bench team service, I just won't have it any more. If I need it again, rinse and repeat.

Currently the only subscriptions I'm maintaining long-term are HBO and Disney. Disney will probably be a long-runner as long as my kids still want to use it for Bluey and the odd movie. HBO has their classic shows like The Sopranos and Deadwood, plus the Adult Swim catalogue, so they land in a good value spot for me too.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#70

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #6

jedberg wrote: post #3

Netflix only lost to Blockbuster because Blockbuster didn't believe in online anything strongly enough to properly fund it. Blockbuster had the better network and better penetration, and even had equally good technology. But corporate didn't want to fund them to hire the next set of engineers they needed. Blockbuster would have won if their board had been just slightly more forward looking. And Netflix knew it.

Isn't this the Sears case again? They were the veteran incumbent with a mountain of experience in the industry, but turning a corporate ship on a dime seems to be impossible. I guess that manifests as a form of "corporate didn't believe in..." or "didn't invest in the engineering" as you say.

Sears was already in the wrong place at that time because not just was it incapable of turning on a dime, it already had corporate raiders inside it turning over every couch for leftover dimes. It was already getting chopped up and shopped for parts by the time the internet arrived.