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Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

latimes.com

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Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#91

Post by godzillabrennus »

fnord77 wrote: post #60
lacrimacida wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put it in perspective for you: Hollywood the actors and writers are on strike because Hollywood, the money making machinery decided to replace them with a product from SV. I don’t care for Hollywood and indeed it has gotten quite garbage anyway but I do support the actors and writers striking because they can. For the rest of us it remains to be seen how we’re going to handle it or whether we boil slowly.. In…

if they're being replaced, what good is a strike going to do?

Make the transition slower:

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#92

Post by dehrmann »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #59

It's worth noting most of this article is spelled out by Adam Conover, the ex-CollegeHumor star of Adam Ruins Everything. Generally speaking, the man does his research.

> These companies blew up a successful business model that the public enjoyed, that was immensely profitable, and they replaced it with a mishmash that we have now

They were only "immensely profitable" because they were in an oligopoly with 4.5 players. Netflix disrupted that, and then it was a race to the bottom. Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. For the most part, it was just adequate.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#93

Post by RandomLensman »

roody15 wrote: post #82

Most the writing on TV today is just awful. I support living wages and fare compensation but the quality of programming and writing seems to be at an all time low. Dune was probably the last solid movie I have seen in years … and that’s because it mostly stayed true to a novel written decades ago.

All time low - want to go back to 1980s TV? Or 1990s? 1970s? I don't remember those times as being just full of great shows either.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#94

Post by [deleted] »

oldtownroad wrote: post #24
taeric wrote: post #5

I support the strikes and hope it comes to a good conclusion; but this feels a touch forced, honestly. I get that it is in vogue to blame silicon valley, but hollywood has a littered history of killing their goose, as it were. For fun, consider that if netflix had stuck to the DVD model, they could still be profitable. You don't need a special license to buy a dvd and rent it out to anyone. Just as you don't need a s…

Netflix used their magical tech money to compete with studios in a wildly unprofitable way. Netflix churns out hundreds of thousands of hours of content each year at heavy, heavy losses, because they can afford to burn money to force the studios to the table. If we imagine a world in which streaming platforms were only ever licensees and not producers, it’s easy to imagine the status quo could have continued indefini…

[deleted]

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#95

Post by roody15 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #93
roody15 wrote: post #82

Most the writing on TV today is just awful. I support living wages and fare compensation but the quality of programming and writing seems to be at an all time low. Dune was probably the last solid movie I have seen in years … and that’s because it mostly stayed true to a novel written decades ago.

All time low - want to go back to 1980s TV? Or 1990s? 1970s? I don't remember those times as being just full of great shows either.

Good point.. I guess I am looking at just a decline in the last couple decades. You are right plenty of terrible writing in the 70’s, 80,s etc

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#96

Post by rtpg »

majormajor wrote: post #64
rtpg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at the same time the contracts weren't particularly well thought out I think they were plenty thought out: Netflix set more or less fixed residuals, which is quite different from “more popularity = more money” for other distribution models. People were mostly fine with it because most shows were not super popular. But if everything is on it suddenly there is no “high end”. And streamers pulling shows means your “lo…

Fair, that makes sense too, but that part of "now stuff will be black holed" is what I think wasn't particularly anticipated from either side. Especially from the streamer's side: now you've spent money on shows that aren't even gaining you "niche back catalog size" benefits.

It’s the streamers making the black holing decision I think? Like the studios aren’t saying “remove this”, but the streamers deciding to not pay residuals. My guess is the higher profile removals are for shows that had special residual deals but most of it is probably just trying to save cash

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#97

Post by taeric »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #81
taeric wrote: post #5

I support the strikes and hope it comes to a good conclusion; but this feels a touch forced, honestly. I get that it is in vogue to blame silicon valley, but hollywood has a littered history of killing their goose, as it were. For fun, consider that if netflix had stuck to the DVD model, they could still be profitable. You don't need a special license to buy a dvd and rent it out to anyone. Just as you don't need a s…

> That is all to say, no, SV is not the root of the problem here. In 2015, %80 of people watched network tv regularly and 50% had streaming accounts. That has flipped in the last 8 years. Total television revenue has declined 35% in that timeframe. What’s happening to television now is what happened to newspapers 10 years ago: low-cost distribution alternatives disrupted the major networks and created new business mo…

Right, the way that residuals played out for syndicated shows is ultimately a large part of the decline for the guild members.

I am still a little curious on a few things in this. For one, I'm not clear on how long residuals can last in a sustainable way. Pretty much no matter how I try and simulate this payment model, it falls on needing more income from future participants. Not quite a ponzi scheme, as you are not asking future members to put money into the pot. You do need them to keep the machine running, though.

Granted, in that framing, the studios are effectively private equity groups that have managed to skim off a ton of value from the creative works? (Saying this as someone that isn't too keen on what a lot of private equity has done.)

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#98

Post by taeric »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #83
taeric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to see how this put anything "in perspective." :( I could as easily say they are on strike because the economy is contracting, and they are the least shielded from the contraction. No need to add SV into the mix. Studios have always been on the lookout for ways to not pay them, such that the latest attempt being streaming seems a bit of a non story item. Again, consider if we had never moved to streaming a…

> I could as easily say they are on strike because the economy is contracting, and they are the least shielded from the contraction. The writer’ and actors’ problem is not a contracting economy (if that is even true). Their biggest problem is people now have tons of cheap entertainment options other than movies/TV, such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, and arguing on forums like Hacker News.

Ish? If this was true, then the studios would also be having a revenue problem.

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#99

Post by taeric »

koolba wrote: post #62
theptip wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression was that Netflix came along with up-front pay packages because taking a residual-heavy deal was not attractive back when streaming was unknown. No mustache-twirling required, just a business model that made sense then and is no longer equitable. The other point is that extras are getting full-body 3D scanned for a day’s pay, licensed in perpetuity. That is an existential threat to the profession; no act…

> The other point is that extras are getting full-body 3D scanned for a day’s pay, licensed in perpetuity. Wtf? Is this really a thing?

Extras have always gotten basically nothing, though? Quite often extras are "allowed to stand around" for filming of a scene that doesn't have a star in it for the chance of being on the big screen.

Or is that no longer the case?

Re: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

#100

Post by [deleted] »

ramraj07 wrote: post #47

It is caused by tech and by tech quite exclusively by Netflix, for sure. But nothing recent or magical thinking is to blame here. In the past people were dumbly forced to pay hundreds of dollars for a cable package they never truly utilized fully. They bought CDs for 10-15 bucks a piece. They bought DVDs in Walmart for movies they never would have paid any money for otherwise except maybe because it’s now in the disc…

[deleted]
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