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Netflix's New Chapter

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Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#91
post #75
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.

I agree with this and would add (perhaps partially and naively in the hopes of some Disney executive seeing this) that I feel very little excitement at the idea of watching any more super hero / jedi movies anymore.

Somehow the branding has become severely distorted, so now these movies make me feel like the studio sees me as a barrier between them and my money.

If Disney can once again make me feel like they're producing content because it's what they love to do, and because they love how we enjoy it, then I'll go back to giving them my money.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#92
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Octonauts would like to have a word

sound the Octo-Alert!

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#93
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.

>All the Star Wars and Marvel shows are star-studded and larded with top-tier visual effects. I'm just going to throw this out there. What if these shows just aren't that good?

Also if you’re not into superheroes and Star Wars, despite it being Disney there’s not a ton there.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is how e.g. Disney+ is losing so much money. It's Disney's content, has an enormous userbase, and somehow is bleeding billions?

> 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…

A lot of it also, is just not that good.

And they keep pulling stuff down or putting stuff up. I don't need artificial scarcity, I want access, just as I want to listen to a song on Spotify when I really want to hear it without being told its no longer available with my subscription. I'm subscribing to the Disney library and most of the time half of it is unavailable.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#95
post #75
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.

That's always been an issue with shared universes. I remember trying to follow X-Men in the 90s. You couldn't just read X-men, you had to read Gambit, Wolverine, &c.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#96
post #75
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.

> I'm like 3 Star Wars series behind. Catching up at this point feels more like a chore than entertainment.

Here let me get you caught up. Blue laser sword is good, red laser sword is bad.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#97
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.

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.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#98
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HBO / Netflix merger FTW?

I think Netflix is better served getting exclusive rights to top IP that differentiates them from others. They don't have many memorable brands that people would buy a T-Shirt for. Like a $5B deal for exclusive streaming rights to all Nintendo IP (think live action Zelda, animated Mario Kart series for kids, Metroid series for adults, etc).

> think live action Zelda

Honestly an animated Zelda would be better. You could even do each season in a different art style as a callback to the games.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has massive range and tons of way to push their services onto users, and google+ failed miserably. Resources are not guarantee of success.

I'm convinced that what killed Google+ was their slow rollout, which was an absolutely bone-headed move that I'm really surprised a company like Google would make. Google+ was a social network. For a social network to have any value, you need your friends to be on it as well. By making it invite-only and throttling how many people could join, they guaranteed that most of your friends weren't there and COULDN'T be the…

Yes. It seems like they learned the wrong lesson from both Gmail as well as Facebook.

With Gmail, the invite-only rollout had the effect of making the service seem exclusive and valuable. I remember getting my invite from a friend and being “let into the club”. (I didn’t take it that seriously, but the feeling of being “in” was still kinda there). And as you note, email still works across providers, so no network effects were harmed.

Facebook also had early exclusivity, but it was entire cohort schools at once! If I was allowed to create a FB account, that meant all my classmates were also being admitted to the club.

G+ didn’t start with any natural cohorts, so being rolled out slowly just guaranteed that initial experiences were tumbleweeds and disappointment.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#100
post #18

I had never heard this part about Blockbuster: > Blockbuster ... started with Blockbuster Online, an entity that was completely separate from Blockbuster’s retail business for reasons of both technology and culture...a test version went live on July 15, 2004 — the same day as Netflix’s quarterly earnings call Blockbuster really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The corporate incentives had become completely b…

The was a long series of articles posted on HN about a decade ago about how Blockbuster fell. TL;DR: Netflix didn't kill Blockbuster, Blockbuster killed itself with a revolving door of those in charge all trying the same simple, obvious and wrong solution to its problems.
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