4 ms·

Whether or not Netflix is dying is not a culture war topic.

twofornone 5y ago
- rnd0 5y ago
  >Whether this is a substantial contributor is difficult to ascertain because people in the tech and filmmaking industries are unwilling to publicly acknowledge that this might actually be a problem. Alternate take -it's not a problem and they're actually serving an audience which enjoys that content. In the case of Netflix specifically, the problems that are driving people away are non-partisan in nature: shows being cancelled early, arbitrary price increases and clamping down on the password sharing policy. None of those have anything to do with the culture war and everything to do with colossal mismanagement by Netflix. They'd be unchanged even if NetFlix's content was to the right of One America News.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    - rnd0 5y ago
      My point is that the problem with Netflix has nothing to do with content, and everything to do with mismanagement. I'm really sorry about your whitewashing narratives (or whatever) but you're either deliberately missing my point and/or trying to hand-wave away from it. If it's the latter, I do not appreciate that. Thanks.
      - twofornone 5y ago
        rnd0 5y ago
        First off, brownwashing isn't a thing -I dismiss people who believe in zombies too. I don't have a lot of time or sympathy for people who are upset that fictional characters are no longer portrayed as being of the dominant race. I mean, there are criticisms to be made about tampering with IP for the sake of sales (https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/features/marvel-is-censoring-films-for-china-and-you-probably-didnt-even-notice/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/features/marvel-i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_LGBT_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_LGBT_issues) but a lot of those decisions often boil down to simple economics (China is a larger audience and the studios cater to that market) but when it starts veering into "$X will not replace us" territory I can't take the complaints seriously -I'm sorry. I have a hard time believing that the people who do object to the progressive content are the reason for this. They may be a contributing factor but I'm honestly skeptical that the numbers who drop it for that specific reason are signifigant. Honestly what I have seen here and on reddit etc are more neutral complaints -about service, about series getting canceled, etc.
        twofornone 5y ago
        fivre 5y ago
        MrMan 5y ago
        resembles stormfront actaully in many ways.
        fivre 5y ago
        eh, perhaps true too often, but i'll still get fighty against it in comments when bored
runarberg 5y ago
I didn’t read the Netflix thread but here are a few topics tangentially related to Netflix which have the potential to spark interesting debates on HN: * Netflix’s worker and labor policy: Being a FAANG it is inevitably interesting to tech workers how one of the big profile companies treads their workers. In a healthy class aware industry this should be a hot topic and indeed an issue in the culture war (as described by Marx himself a century and a half ago). Regardless, as a tech worker my self it is always interesting to see what other tech workers think about our current state of our working conditions. * Netflix’s role in our entertainment: We are humans after all and like different things, we also like to talk about what we like and do not like. Netflix has been particularly brutal in cancelling loved media before the authors of said media had plans to write more (e.g. GLOW, Sense8, etc.) There are some media critics among us that surely has an interesting take on this, and other cultural critics which can go on about what this means in the broader context of our cultures. * Netflix’s influence in the shift of how media is consumed: Being an early streaming platform it has inevitably had a huge influence in individualization and the platformization of media, for better or worse. Most HN users consume media and have felt this and have an opinion on this. There are a lot of amateur—and some professional—philosophers among us which like to share their take on the philosophy of consumerism. These takes can indeed be interesting.
rnd0 5y ago
You'd think that, but it certainly turned into one.
fzeroracer 5y ago
I mean, I took a look at the topic and I see a bunch of people kramering into it to complain about how shows like She-Ra are too gay and spreading homosexual propaganda or to complain that Netflix is too progressive or hates free speech. Ignore that Netflix stood behind Chappelle when people criticized him and his comedy specials. There were plenty of other posts that went deeper into how pricing issues and anti-consumer issues are more of a problem but when that's the solid halfish of the first page I see it doesn't spell a healthy topic. I think sites like HN are increasingly prone to this sort of thing as the user base grows and the self-selection filter falters. That's why I distanced myself from posting on HN due to issues I felt were never going to be resolved. It's less tedious to just post somewhere smaller where it's easier to filter out bad faith people and/or maintain post quality.
astura 5y ago
Half the front page of comments is "I cancelled Netflix because they are shoving political propaganda down my throat" with vaguer and vaguer acquisitions when asked for specifics.

rnd0 5y ago
>Whether this is a substantial contributor is difficult to ascertain because people in the tech and filmmaking industries are unwilling to publicly acknowledge that this might actually be a problem. Alternate take -it's not a problem and they're actually serving an audience which enjoys that content. In the case of Netflix specifically, the problems that are driving people away are non-partisan in nature: shows being cancelled early, arbitrary price increases and clamping down on the password sharing policy. None of those have anything to do with the culture war and everything to do with colossal mismanagement by Netflix. They'd be unchanged even if NetFlix's content was to the right of One America News.
- twofornone 5y ago
  - rnd0 5y ago
    My point is that the problem with Netflix has nothing to do with content, and everything to do with mismanagement. I'm really sorry about your whitewashing narratives (or whatever) but you're either deliberately missing my point and/or trying to hand-wave away from it. If it's the latter, I do not appreciate that. Thanks.
    - twofornone 5y ago
      - rnd0 5y ago
        First off, brownwashing isn't a thing -I dismiss people who believe in zombies too. I don't have a lot of time or sympathy for people who are upset that fictional characters are no longer portrayed as being of the dominant race. I mean, there are criticisms to be made about tampering with IP for the sake of sales (https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/features/marvel-is-censoring-films-for-china-and-you-probably-didnt-even-notice/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/features/marvel-i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_LGBT_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_LGBT_issues) but a lot of those decisions often boil down to simple economics (China is a larger audience and the studios cater to that market) but when it starts veering into "$X will not replace us" territory I can't take the complaints seriously -I'm sorry. I have a hard time believing that the people who do object to the progressive content are the reason for this. They may be a contributing factor but I'm honestly skeptical that the numbers who drop it for that specific reason are signifigant. Honestly what I have seen here and on reddit etc are more neutral complaints -about service, about series getting canceled, etc.
        twofornone 5y ago
        fivre 5y ago
        MrMan 5y ago
        resembles stormfront actaully in many ways.
        fivre 5y ago
        eh, perhaps true too often, but i'll still get fighty against it in comments when bored

I didn’t read the Netflix thread but here are a few topics tangentially related to Netflix which have the potential to spark interesting debates on HN: * Netflix’s worker and labor policy: Being a FAANG it is inevitably interesting to tech workers how one of the big profile companies treads their workers. In a healthy class aware industry this should be a hot topic and indeed an issue in the culture war (as described by Marx himself a century and a half ago). Regardless, as a tech worker my self it is always interesting to see what other tech workers think about our current state of our working conditions. * Netflix’s role in our entertainment: We are humans after all and like different things, we also like to talk about what we like and do not like. Netflix has been particularly brutal in cancelling loved media before the authors of said media had plans to write more (e.g. GLOW, Sense8, etc.) There are some media critics among us that surely has an interesting take on this, and other cultural critics which can go on about what this means in the broader context of our cultures. * Netflix’s influence in the shift of how media is consumed: Being an early streaming platform it has inevitably had a huge influence in individualization and the platformization of media, for better or worse. Most HN users consume media and have felt this and have an opinion on this. There are a lot of amateur—and some professional—philosophers among us which like to share their take on the philosophy of consumerism. These takes can indeed be interesting.

rnd0 5y ago

You'd think that, but it certainly turned into one.

fzeroracer 5y ago

I mean, I took a look at the topic and I see a bunch of people kramering into it to complain about how shows like She-Ra are too gay and spreading homosexual propaganda or to complain that Netflix is too progressive or hates free speech. Ignore that Netflix stood behind Chappelle when people criticized him and his comedy specials. There were plenty of other posts that went deeper into how pricing issues and anti-consumer issues are more of a problem but when that's the solid halfish of the first page I see it doesn't spell a healthy topic. I think sites like HN are increasingly prone to this sort of thing as the user base grows and the self-selection filter falters. That's why I distanced myself from posting on HN due to issues I felt were never going to be resolved. It's less tedious to just post somewhere smaller where it's easier to filter out bad faith people and/or maintain post quality.

astura 5y ago

Half the front page of comments is "I cancelled Netflix because they are shoving political propaganda down my throat" with vaguer and vaguer acquisitions when asked for specifics.