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Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

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Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#501
post #311
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..." Yarr matey, one way do be not parting ways with coin for said services, instead making a more... equitable re-appropriation

I'd rather encourage better options with my money than pirate. Granted there aren't many / any. I do donate to my local PBS station ... the content they provide is pretty dang good.

Check out Mubi, or your local library's Kanopy account if they have one. Lots of great art films on both services.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#502
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Holland seemed to focus more on developing fewer shows of higher quality content while Bajaria was more focused on "get all the content, throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" (who saw "Squid Games" coming?)." I think the root problem is that no studio anywhere is large enough to put out enough high-quality content to keep the people engaged continuously. Not even Disney. All the studios were looking over at…

One of my friends is a writer, and his take on the problem is that the seasoned writers Netflix used to have (a few years ago) are now all getting fairly "old". Aka around their 50's. So, they were let go, and a new generation of young, unseasoned writers has been doing the writing. But unlike previous generations though (heh), many of them are not even slightly interested in learning from the previous (seasoned) wri…

Barely on-topic, but this is sort of the plot of Reboot, and I remember watching this show seeing the dynamic between the elder writer played by Paul Reiser) and the much younger writer played by Rachel Bloom.

The gist of the (relevant) bit of plot is that the younger writer wants to take an old classic series (ala Full House) but do a gritty reboot of it, but the studio brings in the original writers on to help, and there is unsurprisingly a culture clash.

I remember thinking (of the younger generation) how sad it was that they were so eager to dismiss all the experience of the elders, and how glad I was that this was just a TV show and probably not at all what was happening in the real world. I was safe in that ignorance right up until I read your comment.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#503
post #458

What I truly don’t understand is why everyone decided they needed their own streaming platforms. What’s the strategy there? Why does Disney need to invest resources into Disney+ when they can just sell the rights to their content to one or two Streaming platforms and make more money? Did they think it would be cheaper to build their own platforms? Same for all the others. Who cares if Netflix owns the streaming user-…

> Why does Disney need to invest resources into Disney+ when they can just sell the rights to their content to one or two Streaming platforms and make more money? I think they assume they can make more money doing it themselves. They can probably generate more revenue, but the question is whether they end up ahead after accounting for the cost of creating and maintaining the platform.

Based on the amount of originals Netflix has produced, the revenue should be more than enough for creating and maintaining the platform.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#504
post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like one of Murphy's law that in any conversation there must always be those who side with the big corporation hurt by the peasants

More like side of what I really felt. But it is kind of Murphy's law that on any topic some one will claim "Anti corporatism is the logic in itself"

[deleted]

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#505
post #483

Netflix really messed this up. They shouldn't have tried to tackle password sharing. Instead they should have enforced concurrent streams and let people pay for more concurrent streams. Psychologically it's very different and people paying for the premium plan of 4 streams would probably not be affected.

Exactly! But that's just how it goes. Once leadership identifies a problem, it takes a lot to dissuade them. They saw password sharing as a fixable problem, an area of loss revenue that they had to do something about to counter the metrics of stagnating subscriber growth. Very little would change that, even though your approach would prove to be quite beneficial

They envision the back pats they'll give themselves for the success of their great idea, but not the fallout of their terrible idea. Sycophants should never be given authority.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#506
post #468
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Holland seemed to focus more on developing fewer shows of higher quality content while Bajaria was more focused on "get all the content, throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" (who saw "Squid Games" coming?)." I think the root problem is that no studio anywhere is large enough to put out enough high-quality content to keep the people engaged continuously. Not even Disney. All the studios were looking over at…

>but the combination of all of them doing that turn one fairly decent (not perfect, but decent) streaming service into an array of streaming services each individually not worth the subscription. And thus we're back at "cable rates" but pick your poison. The response should be "cancel services when you don't need them" but it's tougher if you have a family with young kids who you let watch. I really liked paying CBS/…

A friend of mine just does one service at a time, and it's low-key fairly brilliant. There's a bit of headache with installing / uninstalling apps on televisions and having to log into things once a month or quarter or however long it takes him, but the kernel of the idea is that there are generally only a few new, good shows worth watching for any given network, but all the good shows are roughly equally distributed between networks.

So instead of paying $10 a month to Disney for Mandalorian, Wandavision, Loki, an additional $10 for Peacock for Mrs. Davis, Bel Air, and Poker Face, plus however much else for HBOMax, Netflix, Hulu, etc., he could just pay one network $10 a month, binge the couple of good shows that they had, and then instead of waiting months for the next thing to come out, unsubscribe and switch to another network. Lather, rinse, repeat.

He isn't as current, and sometimes it's hard to chat about whatever the current new thing is, but society has effectively already given up on the concept of the whole nation tuning in to any one thing and it being the topic of watercooler conversations for a myriad of reasons.

Note: He has children, and I have no idea how he handles this other than to note that he also has a digital antenna, so some shows are "always available" (or at least as much as is allowed for)

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#507
post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Reed Hasting left and Ted Sarandos took over he had a bit of power shakeup and handed over the content reins to Bela Bajaria - who was brought in to head up international over Cindy Holland who was in charge of US content. Holland had brought in House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Stranger Things, The Crown, Ozark and Narcos. Holland seemed to focus more on developing fewer shows of higher quality content w…

Netflix it’s power is innovation. Think Bandersnatch. I assume they’re going to be (one of) the first with an AI-assisted or even completely generated show that is completely tuned to your taste. I expect the same to happen with games, with the wildcard of multiplayer. Music probably earlier than movies / series and games even.

Bandersnatch was a silly gimmick, not innovation. Sierra was doing stuff like that in the 90s.

Choose your own adventure TV may be for some, but I hate it. I want to be told a story, not just pick how I want things to go.

Besides, that or AI genned to taste would remove the social aspect. I love discussing shows, movies, etc with friends. That gets hard to impossible in this model...

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#508
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and one of the great benefits of Netflix was that you could watch multiple seasons of a show, and that a season was 20 ish episodes. Now they do 7 episodes and call it a season and frequently their shows only have one or two seasons.

And they have so many (non-'original') where they only have a few series available at the end or in the middle. I don't understand the licencing/purchasing decision that can lead to that. Seems to happen far too often for it to be different studios/licencors, obviously that happens sometimes. BBC's QI is one example. I understand new series not being available on Netflix (in the UK) as the BBC now have their own subs…

Seems like a bad example, QI doesn't have a storyline ergo you don't need earlier seasons.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up episodic television shows in the 90s brings up an interesting point. For 90s episodic television, script submissions were open to the public. Each show still had a team of staff writers like they do today, but the staff writers would mostly write the really important episodes (like finales and two-parters). The bulk of the episodes would be freelance scripts, with the staff writers editing for consistency…

> The bulk of the episodes would be freelance scripts, with the staff writers editing for consistency and adding an extra scene or two to hint at continuing plot threads Can you name a few shows that were written that way? I'd never heard of this but I don't watch much TV from before the 2000's.

I know Star Trek: The Next Generation did this. They also did it with Deep Space 9. Not sure about Voyager.

I don't know what other shows might have done this.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up episodic television shows in the 90s brings up an interesting point. For 90s episodic television, script submissions were open to the public. Each show still had a team of staff writers like they do today, but the staff writers would mostly write the really important episodes (like finales and two-parters). The bulk of the episodes would be freelance scripts, with the staff writers editing for consistency…

> The bulk of the episodes would be freelance scripts, with the staff writers editing for consistency and adding an extra scene or two to hint at continuing plot threads Can you name a few shows that were written that way? I'd never heard of this but I don't watch much TV from before the 2000's.

I worked with a copy writer that had written an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." By coincidence she had submitted an a script for an episode that coincided with a major plot point they were working to (a character leaving). I asked her about it, and it was really the only major writing credit she ever got.
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