8 ms·

Bean counters shit up everything. This started in traditional publishing in the 1990s and it's responsible for the oppressive mediocrity of the "high literature

Bean counters shit up everything. This started in traditional publishing in the 1990s and it's responsible for the oppressive mediocrity of the "high literature" scene in the US. Money people never, ever know their place. They don't understand that culture is more important than they are, and it shows. It started with the chain bookstores. Used to be, getting in was the hard part, but once a writer got published, he stayed published. His editor would keep supporting his books until he broke out. Chain bookstores wrecked this. They'd pull an author's numbers, see that the first book was a flop, and pass on the second. They also introduced the 8-week rotation, which meant that reader word of mouth (a slower process) got disenfranchised, forcing publishers to pick winners (lead titles) and losers before the books were even launched. This changed the incentive structure. Instead of having to get one person, who knew literature, to believe in his work, an author has to convince a whole committee of people. If the editor can't sell the book to the money people, it gets no marketing or publicity and it dies. Then there are the literary agents, who don't even read 99 percent of the work sent to them. That's done by unpaid college-age interns. So, instead of writing a book readers will love, your focus becomes writing a book that people will think their bosses like. It's a totally different game. I'm not surprised this is happening to Netflix. We tend to have a pro-data bias in technology. We don't realize that when the money people get their hands on data, that unless we are extremely editorial in the context in which they interpret and use that data, it's going to be a disaster. They don't have altruistic motives and they don't work nearly as hard as we do to understand complexity-- it's best to think of them as a different species.

skohan 6y ago
Yes "data driven" does not always lead to what's best for the consumer. From what I understand, Netflix' decision model is heavily based on how many users watch the first X minutes of a season in the first few days that it's up. Essentially if the show isn't a hit immediately after release, it won't be renewed, and the threshold required to renew goes up exponentially every season, so essentially a show has to be a runaway hit in order to survive past the second season. I'm sure this is a data-driven decision, and I guess it shows that novelty is probably what drives people to the platform and gets new subscribers. It makes intuitive sense: with most forms of media the largest number of people will give something a try when it's new, and aside from very rare exceptions the viewer base will settle in to a much lower number of "true fans". So it makes sense in the short term from a business perspective, and they have way more data than I do from my armchair, but I wonder if they are adequately assessing the risk of this decision model. People get deeply emotionally attached to media, and it's a strong negative when a series you love is cancelled, so this could negatively affect their brand over time. And that's not something which is so easy to design KPI's around as new subscriber numbers. I suspect Netflix would have to see increased churn due to pressure from competitors to see more serious attention paid to loyalty and retention.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Not sure how much my viewing influences Netflix "Top 10", but this week it showed Star Trek TNG of being part of it. With all the series being out, including opd ones, I just don't have time to get to watch stuff right after release. I also tend to binge watch series before starting a new one. So when finally start to watch a new series, it might well be to late to get more than one season. Great, basically the same shitty situation we had back the day. And I really thought streaming would result in more variety. Turned out it is just a more modern version of cable tv.
  - matwood 6y ago
    During COVID I've been watching all of TNG. Sadly, after months, I'm now on the last season.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      That makes two, then! Also binged DS9, started VOY and came to the conclusion that out of all of them, DS9 is my favorite. And I do like, somehow, the naive optimism of TNG. Kind of a blast from the past, if you ask me.
      - matwood 6y ago
        > And I do like, somehow, the naive optimism of TNG. This so many times. It gives me hope that humanity will eventually rise above what's going right now. There are also a lot more good lessons in TNG than I remembered as a kid. Great show :)
        hef19898 6y ago
        It was great. personally, I was and still am torn regarding the optimism. I love it, but on the other hand I always liekd gritty and dark SF as well. Luckily for me, there is both! Even within Star Trek! And Picard is my favorite SF ship captain anyway, by far!
      - 6y ago
Tainnor 6y ago
I don't know much about the high literature scene and even less so about what it looks like in the US. Over here in Germany, I always thought it was mostly driven by literary critics, prizes, book fairs, etc. and thus its own sort of niche although I have no idea how well that works. Is that different in the US?
rkangel 6y ago
> This started in traditional publishing in the 1990s I really don't think this started in the 1990s. The tension between commercial needs and artistic purity has existed for as long as there has been art[citation needed]. Some more modern art forms like TV and Film are very expensive and so particularly sensitive to commercial interests but it has always been true - artists have to eat just like everyone else.
- Retric 6y ago
  Computers changed how quickly companies could collect and analyze data. The quarterly results is one artifact if this as currently companies could be publishing this data monthly or even weekly, but historically that simply wasn’t feasible. That really did change a great many decision making processes not just in publishing but almost everywhere else.
- xaedes 6y ago
  But I dont think the commercialisation of art these days isn't driven by the hunger for food of the artists. Other forces try to extract as much value from it as they can. Not nice.
- Evenjos 6y ago
  Exactly. What happened in the 1990s was a major consolidation of all retailers, including bookstores. This created limited shelf space, which, in turn, put pressure on publishers to consolidate their authors into a few mega best-sellers, whom they then were completely reliant on. One Stephen King or James Patterson was enough to pay for 9 underperforming titles. Major publishers also consolidated, from many into the so-called Big Six, which then became the Big Five. Five major publishers own the whole industry. Most publishers you've heard of are an imprint of one of those, or else it's a small press with very limited distribution. All that consolidation has an effect. It narrows the gates, and gives rise to an industry that grows reliant on gatekeepers. Why did the great consolidations happen? Why is everything trending towards a multi-national mega-conglomerate? I think I know, but that's a story for another day.
ohyes 6y ago
> We don't realize that when the money people get their hands on data, that unless we are extremely editorial in the context in which they interpret and use that data, it's going to be a disaster. This is an absolutely fantastic point and applies in more contexts than that of publishing. You absolutely must be editorial in what you present to people who are higher up in the decision process and are less able to interpret the data. It often isn't just the money people, it is also your bosses and their bosses. It is a matter of presenting things with an eye towards the best possible outcomes, and understanding where things would get confusing for someone who is only half paying attention.
csharptwdec19 6y ago
> We don't realize that when the money people get their hands on data, that unless we are extremely editorial in the context in which they interpret and use that data, it's going to be a disaster. They don't have altruistic motives and they don't work nearly as hard as we do to understand complexity-- it's best to think of them as a different species. One could argue 'Money people' tend to be the source of many of our resources misuses (water,land,air,etc.) Of course they'll use data to shit everything up.
varispeed 6y ago
Given that time = money and that the job of money people is extract most value from shortest amount of time and that they seem to do it quite well, won't it mean that people actually get art worth their time? I think that you are upset that mediocre artists no longer could easily shove their art down people's throats? Today it is extremely easy to self-publish. If artist believes their art really should reach other people they have means to do it easier than ever. But the fact someone wants to put money behind it is a generally good indicator whether art is good or not.
- danaris 6y ago
  > won't it mean that people actually get art worth their time? It optimizes for local maxima, rather than taking the risks associated with finding larger global maxima. Or, in other words: It creates lots and lots and lots of pretty-good stuff of particular types with broad appeal, rather than allowing diversification into some stuff that appeals very strongly to group A, some other stuff that appeals very strongly to group B, etc. It makes the publishing/Netflix executives richer, but our culture poorer.
  - jacobion 6y ago
    Analysis I have seen of the effect of streaming on programming choices has been the direct opposite of this: 1. Unlike network television, space isn't limited, so you can make a good show which will only appeal to 20% of the audience. 2. The amount people watch doesn't affect revenue, just whether they renew or not. So it's now better to make one show that someone will really love, than seven shows that they will be vaguely into, but see as interchangeable with seven others on a different platform. If anything, I think Netflix originals are overoptimised for creating cult hits along niche audiences.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I don't know how it plays out in practice, but I agree that it seems as if having the must-have subscription impact of a House of Cards or Game of Thrones when they first came out would trump having a dozen meh middle-of-the-pack mainstream network procedurals or sitcoms.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
macspoofing 6y ago
>Money people never, ever know their place. They don't understand that culture is more important than they are, and it shows. They know their place. They look at spreadsheets all day long, and they see that some money losing piece of culture is preventing the business from creating non-money losing piece of culture ... or making payroll. >It started with the chain bookstores. Used to be, getting in was the hard part, but once a writer got published, he stayed published. It was great for the writer that got published, but not so great for countless others who couldn't get a break and couldn't get into the vaunted 'club' of gatekeeping published writers. >Then there are the literary agents, who don't even read 99 percent of the work sent to them Because there are magnitudes more writers, than writers who can generate an income, and always will be. This is the long-tail that everyone was predicating at the advent of the web. Democratization of culture and media means that it will be much harder for most (except for the tiny few) from making any sort of living from it. You see this on Instagram, YouTube, Twitch streaming, and podcasts because the barrier of entry is so low, it means there are hundreds of thousands of people trying all the time (and those that fail at making an income, are replaced by fresh young faces willing to try). But it's also true of more traditional media, like publishing. >I'm not surprised this is happening to Netflix Neither am I. Every single series that Netflix invests means they have to pass on countless others. There is no other way to run this business. The funny thing is that early on with Netflix, when they did not have a lot of content, they would keep renewing unpopular series forever. As they ramped up production, they followed the same trajectory as traditional network channels like NBC/ABC/FOX.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  >It was great for the writer that got published, but not so great for countless others who couldn't get a break and couldn't get into the vaunted 'club' of gatekeeping published writers. It was also great for readers, because there was a realistic expectation that if something was in print it was at worst competent and at best outstanding. Not so much now. >Democratization of culture and media means that it will be much harder for most (except for the tiny few) from making any sort of living from it. Democratization of culture means that culture becomes confused with entertainment. They're actually not identical. IG, YT, and the rest are now purely about marketing strategies. The content - which used to have to speak for itself - is now secondary to bikini ass shots and other eyeball acquisition systems. There is something rather weird and culty about this. It's almost as if everyone who produces content is being forced to participate in a competitive reality TV show where they Market Their Brand Really Hard™ - and the content is increasingly irrelevant. >Every single series that Netflix invests means they have to pass on countless others. Then they need to start monitoring their pilots more effectively, and also spend a little more on up-front development so that the shows that make it out of the slush pile have some prospect of getting to the end of a natural arc. This is the paradox that most people don't seem to understand. NF claims to be data driven, and supposedly it's economically pragmatic to cut off shows early. It isn't at all. It's actually unbelievably inefficient, economically and also in terms of customer loyalty. The efficient solution is to produce consistently great content. This pays off over the long-haul - because a successful series can keep generating significant income for decades.
snowwrestler 6y ago
There's a lot of judging in this comment that makes me uncomfortable ("think of them as a different species" has a very nasty history in human society). But what you're talking about is essentially the innovator's dilemma. Following the available data can lead to short-term optimizations, but also getting caught in a local minima. The silver lining is that this creates room for new competitors who can skip around that neighborhood in the business model and find a new kind of success. So my question is the same whenever this sort of criticism comes up: if the current companies are screwing up so badly, who are the innovators that will go around those mistakes and out-compete them?
- TrinaryWorksToo 6y ago
  Self-publishing platforms, like lulu.com
- Evenjos 6y ago
  Lulu is ancient, and has been outcompeted by Amazon and other platforms. Wattpad has something like 65 million readers. > If the current companies are screwing up so badly, who are the innovators that will go around those mistakes and out-compete them? I mentioned this upthread, but in a nutshell: Amazon turned the book industry on its head by offering 70% royalties directly to indie authors, cutting out middlemen (i.e. traditional publishers and literary agencies). That happened in late 2009, and it unleashed a gold rush which is still in full swing. Traditional publishers still exist, and they still dominate the print industry (due to the huge expenses involved in print runs and print retail shelf space), but they have lost a lot of control over ebooks and audiobooks. 70% is more than artists get from art galleries, and it's more than musicians get from record labels. It's unheard of in the arts. And it was a very savvy move by Jeff Bezos. It changed the dynamics of that whole industry. If Google/YouTube or some other major distributor of film (such as Netflix, or some new start-up) offers a large platform of viewers, plus that royalty rate for an incentive, then we are guaranteed to see a film Renaissance. I hope it happens. I think that socioeconomic forces being what they are, it is unlikely to happen any time soon. These days, awesome startups are likely to be bought by mega-conglomerates, and any visionary ideas they have will die beneath the weight of committee thinking.
inopinatus 6y ago
> Bean counters shit up everything. This started in traditional publishing in the 1990s I'd say the 1690s, beginning with John Dryden's subscription-only translation of Virgil. Otherwise on point.
dustingetz 6y ago
"Sufficiently Powerful Optimization Of Any Known Target Destroys All Value" https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/does-big-business-hate-your-family/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/does-big-business-ha...
lowdose 6y ago
I wouldn't classify Netflix as a bean culture. Because Netflix is still run by Reed Hastings the founder & CEO. Netflix hired Cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken. From his research came the insight of binge watching series not from Netflix data. Netflix invests in series by pioneering new narratives for niche markets. When a niche market is smaller or the serie is received not as expected Netflix pulls the plug as every rational agent would do. The publishing industry in the 90ties was optimizing their business model for maximizing ROI of limited amount of shelve space by producing hits for popularity what 80% people like. https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/science-behind-why-we-binge-watch https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/science-behind-why-we-bin... Generalizing people in to a category of money people and expecting to draw a profound conclusion from your arbitrary box is underwhelming. Capitalism is the most efficient way to allocate capital and produces much more culture than systems driven by altruistic motives.
- barrkel 6y ago
  Don't forget that it's not a single instance game. The more Netflix pulls shows, the more it develops a reputation for pulling shows. That decreases viewer investment in new shows, as they're incentivized to wait and see if the show lasts, or whether they're going to be left with narrative tension and no payoff after a cancellation. And with decreased viewer investment in new shows, more shows get cancelled because the numbers don't look good. It's pro-cyclical and it burns goodwill.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> Instead of having to get one person, who knew literature, to believe in his work, an author has to convince a whole committee of people. I think that the "one person who knew literature" system is largely a myth. People who "know literature" often resort to promoting the same canon and authors of the same background. I'd wager that a random lottery would produce a more interesting, dynamic, and varied list of books than one curated by a single expert. If you truly want unrestrained creativity, then organizations like NEA need orders of magnitude more funding so they can throw cash at people trying to make something new. That will produce wild, interesting, and experimental works. But it won't produce Mad Men or other kinds of works that promote polish over boundless creativity. It is a trade off.
munificent 6y ago
> Money people never, ever know their place. I think this is pointing the finger in the wrong direction. They do know their place: it's making money. The problem is that in our corporate market-based economy any culture producer that does not relentlessly focus on profit and scale will be outcompeted and destroyed by one that does. Corporations are incentivized to hand the reins to the money people because the larger market structure means they will die if they don't. The market quite simply does not give a shit about the long-term well-being of a society. That doesn't factor into the fitness function at all.
Evenjos 6y ago
This is one of those overly simplistic views that doesn't take the underlying laws and incentives into account. Sure, it's bean counters. So then go a step further, and ask yourself: why are the bean counters afraid to take risks on fresh creative content? What market forces are driving them to bet solely on licensed shlock in the post-2000 world? What changed? If the publishing industry is overwhelmed with a flood of writers--it very much is--well, please ask "why." Dig into the reasons behind the indie author gold rush. There's a great in-depth recent history of the publishing industry here: https://www.wattpad.com/869503247-so-you-want-a-fandom-publishing-marketresearch https://www.wattpad.com/869503247-so-you-want-a-fandom-publi... Quick and dirty summary: Amazon opened its floodgates in 2009, when it offered 70% royalties. Traditional publishing gives authors somewhere around 5% royalties, when all is said and done. That is how the gold rush started. As for publishers betting on tried and true best-sellers... that started earlier, when several laws in the 1980s caused a major consolidation of businesses, including publishers and booksellers. A law got changed, and Barnes & Noble became the arbiter of what got shelf space. There is a lot to this history.

skohan 6y ago

Yes "data driven" does not always lead to what's best for the consumer. From what I understand, Netflix' decision model is heavily based on how many users watch the first X minutes of a season in the first few days that it's up. Essentially if the show isn't a hit immediately after release, it won't be renewed, and the threshold required to renew goes up exponentially every season, so essentially a show has to be a runaway hit in order to survive past the second season. I'm sure this is a data-driven decision, and I guess it shows that novelty is probably what drives people to the platform and gets new subscribers. It makes intuitive sense: with most forms of media the largest number of people will give something a try when it's new, and aside from very rare exceptions the viewer base will settle in to a much lower number of "true fans". So it makes sense in the short term from a business perspective, and they have way more data than I do from my armchair, but I wonder if they are adequately assessing the risk of this decision model. People get deeply emotionally attached to media, and it's a strong negative when a series you love is cancelled, so this could negatively affect their brand over time. And that's not something which is so easy to design KPI's around as new subscriber numbers. I suspect Netflix would have to see increased churn due to pressure from competitors to see more serious attention paid to loyalty and retention.

hef19898 6y ago
Not sure how much my viewing influences Netflix "Top 10", but this week it showed Star Trek TNG of being part of it. With all the series being out, including opd ones, I just don't have time to get to watch stuff right after release. I also tend to binge watch series before starting a new one. So when finally start to watch a new series, it might well be to late to get more than one season. Great, basically the same shitty situation we had back the day. And I really thought streaming would result in more variety. Turned out it is just a more modern version of cable tv.
- matwood 6y ago
  During COVID I've been watching all of TNG. Sadly, after months, I'm now on the last season.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    That makes two, then! Also binged DS9, started VOY and came to the conclusion that out of all of them, DS9 is my favorite. And I do like, somehow, the naive optimism of TNG. Kind of a blast from the past, if you ask me.
    - matwood 6y ago
      > And I do like, somehow, the naive optimism of TNG. This so many times. It gives me hope that humanity will eventually rise above what's going right now. There are also a lot more good lessons in TNG than I remembered as a kid. Great show :)
      - hef19898 6y ago
        It was great. personally, I was and still am torn regarding the optimism. I love it, but on the other hand I always liekd gritty and dark SF as well. Luckily for me, there is both! Even within Star Trek! And Picard is my favorite SF ship captain anyway, by far!
    - 6y ago

Tainnor 6y ago

I don't know much about the high literature scene and even less so about what it looks like in the US. Over here in Germany, I always thought it was mostly driven by literary critics, prizes, book fairs, etc. and thus its own sort of niche although I have no idea how well that works. Is that different in the US?

rkangel 6y ago

> This started in traditional publishing in the 1990s I really don't think this started in the 1990s. The tension between commercial needs and artistic purity has existed for as long as there has been art[citation needed]. Some more modern art forms like TV and Film are very expensive and so particularly sensitive to commercial interests but it has always been true - artists have to eat just like everyone else.

Retric 6y ago
Computers changed how quickly companies could collect and analyze data. The quarterly results is one artifact if this as currently companies could be publishing this data monthly or even weekly, but historically that simply wasn’t feasible. That really did change a great many decision making processes not just in publishing but almost everywhere else.
xaedes 6y ago
But I dont think the commercialisation of art these days isn't driven by the hunger for food of the artists. Other forces try to extract as much value from it as they can. Not nice.
Evenjos 6y ago
Exactly. What happened in the 1990s was a major consolidation of all retailers, including bookstores. This created limited shelf space, which, in turn, put pressure on publishers to consolidate their authors into a few mega best-sellers, whom they then were completely reliant on. One Stephen King or James Patterson was enough to pay for 9 underperforming titles. Major publishers also consolidated, from many into the so-called Big Six, which then became the Big Five. Five major publishers own the whole industry. Most publishers you've heard of are an imprint of one of those, or else it's a small press with very limited distribution. All that consolidation has an effect. It narrows the gates, and gives rise to an industry that grows reliant on gatekeepers. Why did the great consolidations happen? Why is everything trending towards a multi-national mega-conglomerate? I think I know, but that's a story for another day.

ohyes 6y ago

> We don't realize that when the money people get their hands on data, that unless we are extremely editorial in the context in which they interpret and use that data, it's going to be a disaster. This is an absolutely fantastic point and applies in more contexts than that of publishing. You absolutely must be editorial in what you present to people who are higher up in the decision process and are less able to interpret the data. It often isn't just the money people, it is also your bosses and their bosses. It is a matter of presenting things with an eye towards the best possible outcomes, and understanding where things would get confusing for someone who is only half paying attention.

csharptwdec19 6y ago

> We don't realize that when the money people get their hands on data, that unless we are extremely editorial in the context in which they interpret and use that data, it's going to be a disaster. They don't have altruistic motives and they don't work nearly as hard as we do to understand complexity-- it's best to think of them as a different species. One could argue 'Money people' tend to be the source of many of our resources misuses (water,land,air,etc.) Of course they'll use data to shit everything up.

varispeed 6y ago

Given that time = money and that the job of money people is extract most value from shortest amount of time and that they seem to do it quite well, won't it mean that people actually get art worth their time? I think that you are upset that mediocre artists no longer could easily shove their art down people's throats? Today it is extremely easy to self-publish. If artist believes their art really should reach other people they have means to do it easier than ever. But the fact someone wants to put money behind it is a generally good indicator whether art is good or not.

danaris 6y ago
> won't it mean that people actually get art worth their time? It optimizes for local maxima, rather than taking the risks associated with finding larger global maxima. Or, in other words: It creates lots and lots and lots of pretty-good stuff of particular types with broad appeal, rather than allowing diversification into some stuff that appeals very strongly to group A, some other stuff that appeals very strongly to group B, etc. It makes the publishing/Netflix executives richer, but our culture poorer.
- jacobion 6y ago
  Analysis I have seen of the effect of streaming on programming choices has been the direct opposite of this: 1. Unlike network television, space isn't limited, so you can make a good show which will only appeal to 20% of the audience. 2. The amount people watch doesn't affect revenue, just whether they renew or not. So it's now better to make one show that someone will really love, than seven shows that they will be vaguely into, but see as interchangeable with seven others on a different platform. If anything, I think Netflix originals are overoptimised for creating cult hits along niche audiences.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I don't know how it plays out in practice, but I agree that it seems as if having the must-have subscription impact of a House of Cards or Game of Thrones when they first came out would trump having a dozen meh middle-of-the-pack mainstream network procedurals or sitcoms.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

macspoofing 6y ago

>Money people never, ever know their place. They don't understand that culture is more important than they are, and it shows. They know their place. They look at spreadsheets all day long, and they see that some money losing piece of culture is preventing the business from creating non-money losing piece of culture ... or making payroll. >It started with the chain bookstores. Used to be, getting in was the hard part, but once a writer got published, he stayed published. It was great for the writer that got published, but not so great for countless others who couldn't get a break and couldn't get into the vaunted 'club' of gatekeeping published writers. >Then there are the literary agents, who don't even read 99 percent of the work sent to them Because there are magnitudes more writers, than writers who can generate an income, and always will be. This is the long-tail that everyone was predicating at the advent of the web. Democratization of culture and media means that it will be much harder for most (except for the tiny few) from making any sort of living from it. You see this on Instagram, YouTube, Twitch streaming, and podcasts because the barrier of entry is so low, it means there are hundreds of thousands of people trying all the time (and those that fail at making an income, are replaced by fresh young faces willing to try). But it's also true of more traditional media, like publishing. >I'm not surprised this is happening to Netflix Neither am I. Every single series that Netflix invests means they have to pass on countless others. There is no other way to run this business. The funny thing is that early on with Netflix, when they did not have a lot of content, they would keep renewing unpopular series forever. As they ramped up production, they followed the same trajectory as traditional network channels like NBC/ABC/FOX.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
>It was great for the writer that got published, but not so great for countless others who couldn't get a break and couldn't get into the vaunted 'club' of gatekeeping published writers. It was also great for readers, because there was a realistic expectation that if something was in print it was at worst competent and at best outstanding. Not so much now. >Democratization of culture and media means that it will be much harder for most (except for the tiny few) from making any sort of living from it. Democratization of culture means that culture becomes confused with entertainment. They're actually not identical. IG, YT, and the rest are now purely about marketing strategies. The content - which used to have to speak for itself - is now secondary to bikini ass shots and other eyeball acquisition systems. There is something rather weird and culty about this. It's almost as if everyone who produces content is being forced to participate in a competitive reality TV show where they Market Their Brand Really Hard™ - and the content is increasingly irrelevant. >Every single series that Netflix invests means they have to pass on countless others. Then they need to start monitoring their pilots more effectively, and also spend a little more on up-front development so that the shows that make it out of the slush pile have some prospect of getting to the end of a natural arc. This is the paradox that most people don't seem to understand. NF claims to be data driven, and supposedly it's economically pragmatic to cut off shows early. It isn't at all. It's actually unbelievably inefficient, economically and also in terms of customer loyalty. The efficient solution is to produce consistently great content. This pays off over the long-haul - because a successful series can keep generating significant income for decades.

snowwrestler 6y ago

There's a lot of judging in this comment that makes me uncomfortable ("think of them as a different species" has a very nasty history in human society). But what you're talking about is essentially the innovator's dilemma. Following the available data can lead to short-term optimizations, but also getting caught in a local minima. The silver lining is that this creates room for new competitors who can skip around that neighborhood in the business model and find a new kind of success. So my question is the same whenever this sort of criticism comes up: if the current companies are screwing up so badly, who are the innovators that will go around those mistakes and out-compete them?

TrinaryWorksToo 6y ago
Self-publishing platforms, like lulu.com
Evenjos 6y ago
Lulu is ancient, and has been outcompeted by Amazon and other platforms. Wattpad has something like 65 million readers. > If the current companies are screwing up so badly, who are the innovators that will go around those mistakes and out-compete them? I mentioned this upthread, but in a nutshell: Amazon turned the book industry on its head by offering 70% royalties directly to indie authors, cutting out middlemen (i.e. traditional publishers and literary agencies). That happened in late 2009, and it unleashed a gold rush which is still in full swing. Traditional publishers still exist, and they still dominate the print industry (due to the huge expenses involved in print runs and print retail shelf space), but they have lost a lot of control over ebooks and audiobooks. 70% is more than artists get from art galleries, and it's more than musicians get from record labels. It's unheard of in the arts. And it was a very savvy move by Jeff Bezos. It changed the dynamics of that whole industry. If Google/YouTube or some other major distributor of film (such as Netflix, or some new start-up) offers a large platform of viewers, plus that royalty rate for an incentive, then we are guaranteed to see a film Renaissance. I hope it happens. I think that socioeconomic forces being what they are, it is unlikely to happen any time soon. These days, awesome startups are likely to be bought by mega-conglomerates, and any visionary ideas they have will die beneath the weight of committee thinking.

inopinatus 6y ago

> Bean counters shit up everything. This started in traditional publishing in the 1990s I'd say the 1690s, beginning with John Dryden's subscription-only translation of Virgil. Otherwise on point.

dustingetz 6y ago

"Sufficiently Powerful Optimization Of Any Known Target Destroys All Value" https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/does-big-business-hate-your-family/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/does-big-business-ha...

lowdose 6y ago

I wouldn't classify Netflix as a bean culture. Because Netflix is still run by Reed Hastings the founder & CEO. Netflix hired Cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken. From his research came the insight of binge watching series not from Netflix data. Netflix invests in series by pioneering new narratives for niche markets. When a niche market is smaller or the serie is received not as expected Netflix pulls the plug as every rational agent would do. The publishing industry in the 90ties was optimizing their business model for maximizing ROI of limited amount of shelve space by producing hits for popularity what 80% people like. https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/science-behind-why-we-binge-watch https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/science-behind-why-we-bin... Generalizing people in to a category of money people and expecting to draw a profound conclusion from your arbitrary box is underwhelming. Capitalism is the most efficient way to allocate capital and produces much more culture than systems driven by altruistic motives.

barrkel 6y ago
Don't forget that it's not a single instance game. The more Netflix pulls shows, the more it develops a reputation for pulling shows. That decreases viewer investment in new shows, as they're incentivized to wait and see if the show lasts, or whether they're going to be left with narrative tension and no payoff after a cancellation. And with decreased viewer investment in new shows, more shows get cancelled because the numbers don't look good. It's pro-cyclical and it burns goodwill.

UncleMeat 6y ago

> Instead of having to get one person, who knew literature, to believe in his work, an author has to convince a whole committee of people. I think that the "one person who knew literature" system is largely a myth. People who "know literature" often resort to promoting the same canon and authors of the same background. I'd wager that a random lottery would produce a more interesting, dynamic, and varied list of books than one curated by a single expert. If you truly want unrestrained creativity, then organizations like NEA need orders of magnitude more funding so they can throw cash at people trying to make something new. That will produce wild, interesting, and experimental works. But it won't produce Mad Men or other kinds of works that promote polish over boundless creativity. It is a trade off.

munificent 6y ago

> Money people never, ever know their place. I think this is pointing the finger in the wrong direction. They do know their place: it's making money. The problem is that in our corporate market-based economy any culture producer that does not relentlessly focus on profit and scale will be outcompeted and destroyed by one that does. Corporations are incentivized to hand the reins to the money people because the larger market structure means they will die if they don't. The market quite simply does not give a shit about the long-term well-being of a society. That doesn't factor into the fitness function at all.

Evenjos 6y ago

This is one of those overly simplistic views that doesn't take the underlying laws and incentives into account. Sure, it's bean counters. So then go a step further, and ask yourself: why are the bean counters afraid to take risks on fresh creative content? What market forces are driving them to bet solely on licensed shlock in the post-2000 world? What changed? If the publishing industry is overwhelmed with a flood of writers--it very much is--well, please ask "why." Dig into the reasons behind the indie author gold rush. There's a great in-depth recent history of the publishing industry here: https://www.wattpad.com/869503247-so-you-want-a-fandom-publishing-marketresearch https://www.wattpad.com/869503247-so-you-want-a-fandom-publi... Quick and dirty summary: Amazon opened its floodgates in 2009, when it offered 70% royalties. Traditional publishing gives authors somewhere around 5% royalties, when all is said and done. That is how the gold rush started. As for publishers betting on tried and true best-sellers... that started earlier, when several laws in the 1980s caused a major consolidation of businesses, including publishers and booksellers. A law got changed, and Barnes & Noble became the arbiter of what got shelf space. There is a lot to this history.