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Netflix's New Chapter

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Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#131

Post by Sebb767 »

coredog64 wrote: post #106
jdorfman wrote: post #90

> Three months later Netflix cut prices and referred to Amazon’s assumed imminent entry to the space; Netflix’s stock slid again. I never understood why Netflix would continue to become one of the largest AWS customers after Amazon entered the space. Will someone please enlighten me?

Amazon doesn’t really compete with Netflix. Prime Video is there as a marginal benefit to keep customers paying for Prime, which in turn keeps them shopping at Amazon. The Prime catalog frequently changes to the point that a third or even half of my bookmarks are either pay-to-rent or just not available at all.

To be fair, by now Netflix is rotating a lot, too. By now I'm surprised if a movie or series I'm recommended actually is on Netflix. It's not on Amazon Prime level yet, but it's not that far off, at least in my experience.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#132

Post by taco_emoji »

Volundr wrote: post #75
tootie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

TBH this more or less describes the problem at least for me. I'm like 3 Star Wars series behind. Catching up at this point feels more like a chore than entertainment. Forget Marvel.

Marvel seems like it'd be even worse since A) the storylines all intertwine, so you feel like you have "homework" to watch before seeing the latest one, and B) they're all pretty much superhero movies.

With Star Wars, creators can ignore the tired Skywalker storyline, plus there's no genre expectations tying creators down (IMO sci-fi is not a genre so much as a meta-genre or motif). At least in theory--they've been pretty reluctant to spread their wings until recently.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#133

Post by TylerE »

JackFr wrote: post #97
mardifoufs wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 complete…

I could watch The Godfather, Goodfellas, Patton, The Shining, Barton Fink and Millers Crossing a million times without getting tired of them and if I’m just flipping channels will always stop to watch if one of them is on. But I don’t think I’ve ever streamed any of them other than maybe to show a friend who hadn’t seen them. Don’t know why that is, but it’s weirdly true.

Theory: When you come across a movie you love on TV, it's already in the "good bits".

Where as on streaming you have find it, sit through 2 or 3 studio logos, and then 5-15 minutes of exposition that even in most good movies isn't that good.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#134

Post by sideshowb »

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…

> You can keep recycling content to kids for years and kids will rewatch the same thing.

Furthermore, kids will complain if they lose access to frozen etc so disney+ has an exit cost. Like the admiral said, it's a trap!

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#135

Post by BurningFrog »

cwmma wrote: post #104
Volundr wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH this more or less describes the problem at least for me. I'm like 3 Star Wars series behind. Catching up at this point feels more like a chore than entertainment. Forget Marvel.

here's some advice, skip everything else, just watch Andor, it's fantastic, best Star Wars since Empire. Other stuff has been hit or miss.

Andor reinvented the spy thriller in the Star Wars universe.

Mandalorian reinvented the Western in the Star Wars universe.

Both are superb. The other Star Wars series are not.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#136

Post by red-iron-pine »

svachalek wrote: post #60
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…

Years ago we joked that someday there would be a service like that, and they would call it "cable".

Now we call it cable cutting.

There won't be a return to cable; probably a return to piracy

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#137

Post by mrpippy »

jessaustin wrote: post #101
throwaway894345 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is my family. We don't have kids, but we probably wouldn't have D+ if it didn't come bundled with our Verizon bill. I don't know how everyone else is managing, but I'm suuuuuuuper burned out on superhero and star wars movies. It really feels like Disney in particular but Hollywood more generally need to branch out more and not rely so much on stamping out franchise films--they're good for an occasional fli…

...we probably wouldn't have D+ if it didn't come bundled with our Verizon bill. This feels like it should be illegal. You're certainly paying for D+, and it's not as though Verizon competes in a free market.

At least by US standards, cellular service is about as free a market for a utility as we have.

If you need to be on Verizon's network, you could go to Visible or another MVNO. If not, there's ATT and T-Mo and all of their MVNOs as well.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#138

Post by TylerE »

no_wizard wrote: post #44
viciousvoxel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW my understanding is that WB withholding the Looney Tunes backlog is entirely due to the fact that there's a lot of problematic (e.g. racist, sexist) material in there that they're understandably worried about. I completely agree with you otherwise.

Disney+ got around this problem by just adding disclaimers to the content. They did this for all their questionable content, and if people reported it (IE they missed something) they were quick to add it. It seems Disney+ isn't scarred by this at all (it definitely doesn't dominate the public conversation around it), so perhaps there is a lead in here?

Sort of. Disney as a company still tries extremely hard to pretend Song of the South never existed.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#139

Post by pnathan »

My take is that acted video on demand is ripe for collapsing into a few services.

The next big streaming target is sports. That will, in my opinion, be the determinant of the streaming success in the next decade.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#140

Post by levi-turner »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #31
thiago_fm wrote: post #16

Something I don't understand is why Disney and others need to have their own streaming service. Why Netflix can't sit down with Disney and merge the two streaming services. Disney is amazing at making content, so is Netflix at the moment. They could take a look at the present, their market cap, debt and so on and structure a solution that would: 1. Make Netflix the best streaming service with the best content, also b…

I think what you're describing could be a white-label Netflix. Essentially a different UI skin, branding and content library but served by Netflix's tech stack, etc. Its probably more likely any consolidation would happen with the smaller players (NBC, CBS) doing this with Netflix rather than Disney.

Funnily enough, Disney+ is built by BAMTech who is a spin-off of MLB Advanced Media (ref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Streaming ).
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