The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see • Hacker News Board

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#281

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #271

selcuka wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you have a captive audience the next strategy is to milk it to death Netflix (or any streaming service) users are not captive audience. The network effect for such services is next to nil. If I don't like what Netflix offers, I will simply cancel my subscription. There is nothing that would keep me paying other than quality content.

> Netflix (or any streaming service) users are not captive audience. The network effect for such services is next to nil. Their moat is in the content and licenses they've acquired. You can't watch Stranger Things anywhere else. They make a lot of original content to widen their moat and keep eyeballs returning to their platform. Netflix also currently has (I believe) exclusive streaming access to Breaking Bad (thoug…

[deleted]

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#282

Post by kalleboo » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

sennight wrote: post #68

starttoaster wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 2021, Dogecoin was a very interesting short term investment, yeah. Everyone was high off of AMC and GME in the stock market, so people were actively investing and day trading. Elon Musk was talking up Dogecoin, keeping in mind this is when he was still very popular in a positive way, and crypto in general was doing really well around that time. I'm not sure that it's wise to throw money into it now though. Cry…

> Crypto has become a very polarizing topic with people... Certain people. I was involved from the beginning, and most of the OGs just shrug at the present day noise - the convert zeal being long exhausted by all the complaints about how PoW makes Mother Gaia cry. The people who have a crazy level of investment are the tech journalists that took very public positions badmouthing bitcoin. That is probably also true of…

It's not quite the beginning but I bought Bitcoin anonymously using cash from Mt Gox in the rally up to $15 before it crashed back down to $5, and then ignored my wallet until it added many zeroes before I sold.

I still think that, as a concept, it's dumb as shit, even thought it was profitable for me. I just got lucky.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#283

Post by krisoft » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

constantly wrote: post #272

crooked-v wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly because Zaslav, the new boss, hates cartoons (not hyperbole, he's said things to that effect himself) and that colored any judgment on the release of the film.

I hate Hallmark holiday movies (I don’t, but let’s be hypothetical for a second — i.e. not real), but if that were a way to make profits and I was the Hallmark CEO I would be releasing them daily during holiday season. It seems a little silly to think that the boss Zaslav would forego profit because he personally “hates cartoons.”

That is true, but nobody knows for sure how much a movie will make. Generally you know the more you invest into advertising the more people will want to see it, but how much return exactly every dollar spent on advertising will generate won’t be known beforehand.

The job of studio executives is to estimate this, and based on that make choices. This is based on some amount of objectiveish data (such as market research and comparative trends) but also has a large component of guesswork. And this guesswork is where his personal preferences can colour his decision making.

In other words if he would know it will make a lot of money he would release it for sure. You are right on that. But it is not known, and perhaps the objective indicators are ambigous or borderline, that is where his personal preferences might make a difference.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#284

Post by dleink » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #263

Zircom wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything streaming makes shows like The Wire more accessible and viable as commercial successes. It's hard to keep details in your head when the show airs an episode once a week, and if you're tuning in for the first time you've got no idea what's going on and find something else to watch. Neither of those issues he to exists with streaming, although more and more they're switching back to an episode a week model,…

We are still in the early days of figuring out what works. One issue: media execs don't know anything except "that was profitable, so let's do it again". Have you noticed that Netflix now has fifty cooking shows, split between one-shot game shows and tournaments/"reality" dramas? "Iron Chef" worked and "Top Chef" worked, so they get cloned and slightly modified. All of these sink. For a long-form SF/F show, what hasn…

> - irregularly sized episodes matching the plot

This is the one I've been thinking about for a while. I'm not sure why the MCU or Star Wars aren't doing more of this. They've kind of figured out how do to different sized plots (Daredevil vs. Avengers, Rogue Squadron) but why aren't they more connected? Why aren't they doing more multimodal storytelling. Have a big blockbuster movie, a 90 minute heist movie, a prestige tv season about politics, one about the military. Have some books about complicated stuff, a video game about the actiony parts, tiktok and instagram as storytelling devices instead of martech, etc.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#285

Post by davely » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

supermatt wrote: post #222

They (all major streaming services) throw away millions on series they never release, they reduce spending on new series, and yet they still manage to increase the cost of the service - and some are even adding pre-roll advertising? I was a huge advocate for these streaming services, but with the unjustified pricing hikes, ongoing georestriction of content, and the addition of advertising into a paid service, it has…

This is where services like Rdio (sigh), Spotify and Apple Music have done really well, in my opinion.

If I want to listen to some music, it’s practically guaranteed to be right there in the one music service I’m paying for.

If I want to watch a show or movie, there’s now a bunch of cognitive overhead going going on.

- Which app is it in?

- Do we have that one?

- Do we have a subscription?

- Wait, how do we navigate the UI in this app again?

- Why is there an ad? I thought we pay for this service!

- Oh, we don’t pay enough.

- Oh, this service is raising it’s monthly fee, again

For me, the creation of streaming music services completely stopped me from pirating music.

The current state of streaming video makes me want to pull out the old eye patch and take to the high seas again.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#286

Post by nvm0n2 » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

augustulus wrote: post #265

ekianjo wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was a huge advocate for these streaming services, It was always going to go this way. Once you have a captive audience the next strategy is to milk it to death

as usual the stock market is to blame. in the 100 years or so it’s existed, the BBC has never really had a sustained drop in content quality, and yet its model is somehow taboo

> the BBC has never really had a sustained drop in content quality

The article is about a Netflix sci-fi show. The BBC just point blank refuses to make those despite the enormous popularity of the genre; the history of BBC sci-fi is so tiny it would fit on a postcard. What little it has made is either meant for kids, or is a comedy, which nicely sums up the Beeboid attitude to the sort of people who like it. You can't experience a drop in quality if there's nothing to drop.

And in this we see the reason why the BBC, despite its enormous budget, is quite simply no threat to Netflix and never could be. The quasi-communist license fee approach insulates it from what people want so well that it can ignore the most popular type of TV show for ideological reasons and nobody even bothers to complain, knowing full well that it's pointless. 99% of the energy of the BBC's critics gets absorbed trying to push back against its bias in news reporting, leaving none left for trying to improve its entertainment output.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#287

Post by kadoban » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

c0pium wrote: post #233

kadoban wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand all the love for Dune. I read it, it was ok, and that was it. 3 underwhelming film adaptations is more than enough. It's the Count of Monte Cristo meets Star Wars, with great world building, pretty good plot and characters and a lot of interesting philosophy, sociology, strategy and tactics. What's not to love? The scifi miniseries was decent. The 1984 one was...barely Dune, though I enjoyed it.…

You should read the count of monte cristo, it’s in an entirely different league in terms of writing compared to Dune. The philosophy is transparent, the tactics and strategy are basically nonexistent, and the sociology is missing any kind of coherence.

I have read it. Yeah it is a better book, but there's few that measure up.

Dune isn't as bad as you imply IMO. To each their own though. It probably helped that I read Dune for the first time when I was young.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#288

Post by mathiscool8888 » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

meh, sounds like Netflix just funded his manic episodes, nothing much to see here

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#289

Post by rvba » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

davely wrote: post #285

supermatt wrote: post #222

They (all major streaming services) throw away millions on series they never release, they reduce spending on new series, and yet they still manage to increase the cost of the service - and some are even adding pre-roll advertising? I was a huge advocate for these streaming services, but with the unjustified pricing hikes, ongoing georestriction of content, and the addition of advertising into a paid service, it has…

This is where services like Rdio (sigh), Spotify and Apple Music have done really well, in my opinion. If I want to listen to some music, it’s practically guaranteed to be right there in the one music service I’m paying for. If I want to watch a show or movie, there’s now a bunch of cognitive overhead going going on. - Which app is it in? - Do we have that one? - Do we have a subscription? - Wait, how do we navigate…

It is very easy to be a monopoly, especially one that was first in a certain market, or which can use various tactics to make you use their service. You dont remember how Apple would upload some album into your device without your consent?

I find it fascinating how many people allow monopolies for just laziness: "Steam is so great because I have all games in one place - I dont need 20 shortcuts on my desktop". Then Steam (for years - I think they fixed it now and it opens in few seconds, without asking you to login every day), takes 2 minutes to start because it was written by cheapest bidder + it can close your account so you lose all your games.

Multiple services are a way for actual market competition. Otherwise everything becomes Disney, who churns multiple crappy Marvel movies every year (current blockbuster cinema is mostly rubbish), or everything becomes Neflix where quality is trash, but hey actors were chosen by an algorithm (Ozark - or what was the show name, basically took popular actors and a popular theme and made a show with no interesting plot, no interesting dialogue).

So scary to see that people agree with that, because they are lazy. This is some Idiocracy level.

By the way, since we are on hacker news: nearly all, if not all shows are on the pirate websites.

Re: The $55M saga of a Netflix series nobody will ever see

#290

Post by jowea » Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC

advisedwang wrote: post #125

motohagiography wrote: post #123

They foucus on the dollar amount, but the startup graveyard of software companies who raised $50M or more by their series A or B that nobody will have heard of seems much larger. Movies and series seem pretty low risk by comparison. A movie studio and a venture fund seem to have similar economics.

A single Netflix show does not have the potential to end up with multi-billion dollar per-year recurring revenues. The potential upside on a startup is far far large. In addition, there are no low-risk startups. There are, however, relatively low risk films and TV shows to be made.

Do they calculate the possibility that the show will start a decades long franchise?