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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

#101

Post by AmericanChopper »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #63
AmericanChopper wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the public supports of the strike amounts to ... wanting new TV shows and movies Nobody in my social circle has taken any notice of it, because movies and TV has become so bad that none of us watch them anymore. Dune was the last Hollywood movie I watched, Oppenheimer and the next Dune are the only movies I’m looking forward to watching. There’s nothing on TV that I watch. I’m somewhat looking forward to the 3 Body…

I find this quite cynical. The same executives who want to steal the wages of the writers and actors are responsible for the quality and range of productions. It is only a handful of directors who get full creative license. I agree that good sci-fi is rare but don’t think that my personal dissatisfaction should result in many thousands of already exploited people who put in incredibly hard work, their heart and souls…

I do sympathise for the poor working arrangements, but I just can’t bring myself to support a return to the status quo that would continue producing more of the same content that Hollywood has been producing.

I certainly don’t blame only the writers. The producers and executives also play a major role in the decline of the quality. But I’ve seen bits and pieces of TV recently, and I do think the writing itself is typically just bad, regardless of other creative constraints.

There’s many ways that a system can fail, and I’m simply not upset to see this system progressing along its path to failure.

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

#102

Post by WalterBright »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #8
phpisthebest wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The economy goes from boom to bust, bust to boom, it does not have to. boom and bust is a direct result of fiat currency and manipulation of that currency by central banks

Fiat currency and the central banks were the direct result of the boom-bust cycle.

Fiat currency is the result of trying to finance WW1. The propaganda reason was to even out the boom-bust cycle, of course that promise was never fulfilled.

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

#103

Post by BLKNSLVR »

phpisthebest wrote: post #3
monero-xmr wrote: post #2

The economy goes from boom to bust, bust to boom, new technologies and ideas come, the novelty wears off and reality sets in (but the gems stick around!), so on and so forth. One thing that was unique this cycle was the extended period of near-zero interest rates in the rich world - this made the boom very big. I’m not sure it’s “Silicon Valley” thinking other than as a euphemism for subsidizing losses in hopes of fu…

>>The economy goes from boom to bust, bust to boom, it does not have to. boom and bust is a direct result of fiat currency and manipulation of that currency by central banks

It's the management of the fiat currency that's part of the problem, not the fiat currency itself.

Fundamentally it's human laziness and corruptablility, both actively and passively.

But it's also basic human nature in reaction to stock market bubbles and the fomo of getting rich quick.

There aren't enough rules and regulation around stock market trading, or at least they're not enforced well enough, to maintain some kind of rationality.

... and it still may not actually be possible.

But there's little effort to reign it in because the powers that be tend to massively profit from the status quo.

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

#104

Post by WalterBright »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #76

I think the more compelling tale is that Hollywood execs are infected with Wall Street thinking. Maximum profit extraction, the kind of product is irrelevant, as are the customers.

Do you enjoy watching the hit TV shows and movies produced by the Soviet Union? Who is your favorite Soviet movie star?

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

#105

Post by WalterBright »

coding123 wrote: post #88

I don't know what the heck is going on... but is it something to do with Netflix making crappy shows and shows like Lost are lost forever?

Lost is available free from the library:

https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S82C509009

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

#106

Post by scarface_74 »

taeric wrote: post #98
lotsofpulp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They are

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/

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

#107

Post by scarface_74 »

Retric wrote: post #33
oldtownroad wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

First Netflix as a company is profitable so it’s hard to say they’re losing money on producing content or not. Netflix owning the content it’s producing means they can use it to help retain customers indefinitely. It’s a very difficult value proposition to accurately calculate because in say 2025 they could stop streaming and still have a revenue stream from licensing their content to other platforms.

Netflix has been profitable for a long time according to GAAP standards. But for years they were borrowing more money than they were making.

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

#108

Post by lacrimacida »

nitwit005 wrote: post #69
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…

They're also on strike over rather mundane things like residual payments, which have been very low for some streaming shows. The AI bit is just much more exciting to talk about, for everyone involved.

It’s the icing on the cake and bluntly ready to extract all the remaining value from the trade. I would not downplay the emphasis AI in this scenario

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

#109

Post by chris11 »

taeric wrote: post #99
koolba wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It's not just extras. Jet Li turned down The Matrix Reloaded because they were requiring that he also sell the rights to the martial arts moves used.

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

#110

Post by erklik »

dehrmann wrote: post #92
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 adequa…

> Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. For the most part, it was just adequate.

Not adequate either. Throwing a hundred ads during one show, at the same time charging you for it and that's somehow a good experience? Netflix is a million times better and that's why they're still raking in money.

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