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Netflix’s bad habits have caught up with it

• simonswords82 4y ago
  I did not know they were thinking about taking on ads. That's got to be a circling of the drain.
  • B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
    If I remember correctly, a feature of cable TV way back when was ... no ads. Pesky things. I bet Gutenberg felt the same.
    • Clubber 4y ago
      And ads are what killed it too, once a competing technology (finally) came out. From what I understand the US shows way to many adds compared to Europe, it's nearly half of the show time. If TV/cable execs weren't so greedy, they might still be alive. It seems like US companies tend to kill the golden goose.
    • scarface74 4y ago
      Where does the myth that cable ever was ad free come from? Cable started out as a method to deliver broadcast TV to people who couldn’t get reception. Then superstations like TBS started broadcasting local content. Cable always had ads besides premium TV like HBO
• fallingfrog 4y ago
  I wonder how much the cable companies are charging them to not throttle their content right now? The price would drop by half the second you put net neutrality back.
• mrbonner 4y ago
  I have T-Mobile pays for the very basic Netflix as part of the deal. I just canceled the ultra HD package ($11+) more a month. There is no way I could outright get rid of Netflix so I just stuck with the basic account for now.
• spicyramen_ 4y ago
  • PartiallyTyped 4y ago
• thrill 4y ago
  The quoted "competing exec" is 100% wrong when he says Netflix is making a mistake ending shows after three seasons. Shows need to be pitched and run for three seasons max, period. Everyone has a life other than the show that's "hot" for the moment, from cast to writers to the source of money - the viewers. Shows that get dragged out inevitably suck. And yeah, go to weekly releases.
  • eggsmediumrare 4y ago
    Depends on the show (IASIP has been funny until recently, South Park is still good, et cetera), but I agree that shows shouldn't have the life wrung out of them
    • justbaker 4y ago
      Sadly I think both are in their decline(and have been past few seasons) Both were the worst seasons of the series… South Park lost its edge where they poke fun at anything and everything without fear of backlash. The “tolkien” episode smelled of wokeness. The tegridy episodes are getting old, you can tell the two creators just don’t care as much about the show anymore as the IRL tegridy.
      • conradfr 4y ago
        Sure but it's the 25th season...
  • bumper_crop 4y ago
    Other studios do "episode at a time" pilots, Netflix does "season at a time" pilots. Pretty much everyone misunderstands; and thinks a whole season implies more seasons.
    • chimeracoder 4y ago
      This is not a good comparison, because except in very few cases, the audience of a pilot is not the general public. In fact, the general public will never have the chance to see the pilot unless it's picked up, and in that case they'll still have to wait until the entire season is filmed. By contrast, Netflix uses the viewership ratings from the first season to determine whether to renew for a second season.
• bumper_crop 4y ago
  TV shows take about 2 years from greenlight to being distributed for Viewing. Cindy Holland was fired in September 2020, which means we will need to wait till this fall to see if the decision has improved the quality.
  • fluidcruft 4y ago
    I don't know about that. Wasn't she was fired because she refused to green light piles of what she found to be low quality content and then the CEO got frustrated because he wanted quantity and decided to allow a bunch of other people to override her decisions?
    • bumper_crop 4y ago
      I was under the impression she hadn't had any good hits leading up to the end of 2020, and enough misses caused her to lose favor. I can't really think of any great Netflix originals from 2018-2020.
• bumper_crop 4y ago
  It doesn't help that Netflix stands on principle and blocks all accounts in Russia, one of their major sources of subscriber growth. America, while being the most lucrative market, was already pretty saturated. Cutting off the countries with huge growth makes it extremely difficult to keep growing paying customers. But, principle comes first at Netflix, to the chagrin of their stock holders and employees.
  • aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
    >But, principle comes first at Netflix, to the chagrin of their stock holders and employees. You're saying that as if that was a bad thing.
    • nullcipher 4y ago
      Isn't the whole point of stock investments for consumers is to grow their money. All this ethics/morals is all passe . What they want is to invest in oil, defense companies and then talk to real people about global warming and peace on earth.
  • tonguez 4y ago
    would it even be possible for netflix to not block russian accounts? aren’t companies that big always significantly enmeshed with the state?
    • bumper_crop 4y ago
      Generally Netflix makes shows in the same country in which it operates. This has a positive interaction between the country and the company, since the shows are more identifiable to the people who would watch them in that country. While the production in Russia probably would have to stop, there was no reason to turn off access to the existing and new customers. It had no measurable effect on Russia's actions or the outcome of the war. It was merely an attempt for Netflix to "be on the right side of history". Instead, it's shaping up to be Netflix "not being part of the future".
  • 4y ago
• rch 4y ago
  > We have to have an Adam Project and a Bridgerton every month Decade+ subscriber: I'm never watching those shows. If they have to advertise or talk up their programming, it's not going to be worth the time to see how terrible it is. On the other hand, I'll have 3 people mention a new season of Ozark before I've noticed it's been released.... Actually, that was more true of the second season than the recent ones. So, if fixing the content is the answer, then maybe the people who created the problem aren't the right ones to fix it. Their taste is out of sync with that of their subscribers.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• dragontamer 4y ago
  I was expecting to see some discussion over Netflix's depreciation models, which is (apparently) over 5 years, 20% per year. While Disney (and other producers) do something like 90% depreciation over the first year, the famous "Hollywood accounting" that gets a lot of criticism. But "Hollywood accounting" might be closer to the truth than Netflix's model. 20% of the movie "Bright" (released in 2017, the Will Smith + Orc buddy-cop movie) is still being "paid for" on Netflix's books this year. -------- Since Netflix's growth has slowed a bit, the effects of depreciation are now going to start hurting it. But it seems like everything discussed in this article is about the fundamental viewership issue, which might be worse.
  • oneoff786 4y ago
    That’s interesting. And probably astute. One off movies not part of a larger series have significantly shorter periods of relevance. It doesn’t make sense to spread it out over 5 years at all.
  • tomnipotent 4y ago
    > over Netflix's depreciation models Amortization - Netflix treats content as assets, and recognizes on average 90% of amortized expenses in the four years after first broadcast. Net revenue looks better, but cash flow and balance sheets are still going to reflect outlays, which can often occur before first broadcast. The "Hollywood accounting" recognizes 90% of expenses in the first year to artificially reduce net profit, which in turn means less taxes and royalties during the year when most revenue for content is recognized. Netflix can make a case that content continues to make an impact on subscription revenue over a larger window of time, and so expenses should equally be recognized in relation to the income statement. Netflix also regularly updates their amortization schedule as trends shift.
    • dragontamer 4y ago
      > Netflix can make a case that content continues to make an impact on subscription revenue over a larger window of time, and so expenses should equally be recognized in relation to the income statement. How many people are getting Netflix subscriptions to watch Bright (2017 Will Smith+Orc movie) this year? Or from a Disney perspective, how many people are getting Disney+ to watch Coco (2017 Day of the Dead 3d cartoon)?
• jmyeet 4y ago
  So the problem with media conglomerates (including big studios) is they want predictable returns. More specifically, they want a formula. Let me introduce you to Save the Cat [1]. This book has become so influential that you can read this book and then watch pretty much any movie and you'll be able to tick off everything in the movie to this structure. It's why studios love sequels and franchises. They have a built-in audience ie predictable returns. The biggest innovation we've had in this industry is the advent of highly serialized TV shows, made possibly in large part due to (at first) DVRs and then streaming. 30 years ago it just wasn't possible or practical to do somethin glike this when people had to tune in at a set time. The audience drop off would've been too severe. For me this has been the true Golden Age of TV. But movies? It's all superhero films now and dull, dull, dull for the most part. So the lesson Netflix is learning here is you can't just scale up a content business by throwing money at it. Studios would love if it this were true. Netflix has thrown many billions at this problem and not spent it wisely. You can't just write a check for $10 billion and become HBO. Movies in particularly just don't make economic sense without theater releases. We've seen this durin gthe pandemic with movies that have skipped theaters out of necessity. It just doesn't work. I agree Netflix needed to create original content given the inevitable "me too" streaming platforms from all the studios would otherwise rob Netflix of their catalog. But they may have just saddled themselves with so much debt that they're forced into ever-increasing sub prices because of decreasing subscriber numbers, which just accelerates the need for more price hikes and so on. Ironically this is exactly what is killing cable TV. [1]:https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009 https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp...
  • pvarangot 4y ago
    I would add that "a formula" doesn't mean it's bad. I regularly drank beer since like when I was 14 until when I was like 35 or something? I do it way less now but still sometimes drink beer. My favorite style changes. Sometime I just drink a new one because like dopamine hits and I get excited about the potential novelty and discovery. But it's beer, and I think there's nothing wrong with it. From bud light to like whatever quadruppel or super IPA monstrosity someone in the Bay Area decided to brew and that may work as an antiseptic, I like them all. There's a formula and I like it, and I also like Marvel movies. Maybe I'm a basic bastard and I'm making a cardinal sin by spending my money on non innovative things and I should be only watching surreal pieces shot in a single take where at least one actor committed suicide or got addicted to opioids while shooting the movie. Don't get me wrong, those are great too and specially the followup documentaries. I also can then participate in high stakes intelectual debates. But that's a formula too. And maybe I should drink sours but fuck that. But yeah I think your analysis is great but I also think it's important to say that milking successful formulas is not wrong or morally reprehensible. If you scam people or whatever while doing yeah that's bad, but letting the chicken lay the golden eggs and not changing anything about it is pretty much ok in my hierarchy of sins.
• mortenjorck 4y ago
  > Problem is — and again, this is not some massively deep observation — wanting more hits and actually making them are two very different things. Netflix until now seems to have believed the best way to produce them is to throw all the money it can find at Hollywood and wait for the successes to start rolling in. This is basically the VC formula applied to entertainment, and just like how sometimes you get a Dropbox, sometimes you get a Stranger Things. And sometimes you don't. Of course the key in both is having people with a developed enough market savvy and eye for talent to spot the future Dropboxes and Stranger Things. In VC, it requires a deep understanding of market forces, founders, teams, and tech, and in entertainment, it requires an understanding of both popular tastes and critical tastes as well as the intricacies of production. Smart people can make bad bets and anyone can get lucky, but the part that's so much harder than it looks is to improve that batting average. Everyone has an opinion on what Netflix should do – I certainly have my own thoughts on things that ought to work (sign Ian Hubert to make a Dynamo Dream series! Adapt Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination with The Rock as Gully Foyle!), but ultimately, it's just my guesses about the cultural marketplace. What Netflix needs is people with greenlight power who have a better feel for that marketplace than anyone else.
• petilon 4y ago
  The reason for Netflix lost subscribers in 2022 is the same as the reason Netflix experienced a growth spurt in 2020: work from home. When people work from home, on average they gain an extra hour or more per day, because they don't have to commute. (Not to mention, the boss can't walk up behind you and catch you enjoying a movie!) Now that work from home is over, they no longer need the Netflix subscription.
  • LegitShady 4y ago
    While WFH probably did impact some of their subscriber amount, other issues definitely affect the total subscriber amount, including cost (compared to competing against apple TV+, amazon prime video, and disney+), lack of content (which they're trying to work on) and controversy. They also have competition on the "content" front in that amazon prime video is now creating its own terrible "lets throw money at this until it works" service to compete with them, and many people already have it with prime so don't feel the need to pay netflix's increasingly expensive service. I don't know about you but netflix costs more than amazon prime for me, so I could either get netflix or I could get all the amazon prime benefits. It's a losing proposition for netflix.
  • mertd 4y ago
    Netflix losing subscribers is a false narrative. Had they not pulled out of Russia, they would have posted a net gain.
    • rvz 4y ago
      > Netflix losing subscribers is a false narrative. So is that why the increasing competition from the likes of Apple, Disney+ and HBO, recent price increases and password sharing loopholes have plagued its growth? All of that explains why they are (still) losing subscribers. Pulling out of Russia, just accelerated it and that was self-inflicting.
      • bumper_crop 4y ago
        > So is that why the increasing competition from the likes of Apple, Disney+ and HBO, recent price increases and password sharing loopholes have plagued its growth? This is also a false narrative. Netflix subscribers seldomly churn. Long lived accounts typically don't cancel, since new content comes out on a weekly basis. You can't cancel your cable subscription and just buy Disney+; you usually keep Netflix around too. Netflix is only tangentially competing with other streamers; they are directly competing with cable. The subscriber count is affected by two things: new subscribers coming on board, and existing subscribers leaving. Since subscribers usually don't leave, the miss was on the new subscribers coming in. It absolutely was due to high growth countries (like Russia) not growing.
• Animats 4y ago
  This is starting to look like a generic problem for companies which are valued on the basis of future growth, but may have in fact reached their mature size. Suddenly they have to be priced as ongoing operating companies, which is based on revenue and profits right now. Facebook. Uber. Netflix. Tesla. They all do something that people will pay for, but they aren't going to get a lot bigger.
  • coffeeblack 4y ago
    Not sure why you put Tesla in the list. They still grow substantially, just added two new large factories (Germany, Texas) and about to build another one (Indonesia).
    • Animats 4y ago
      Because they are a luxury car maker, a crowded sector. Tesla, to grow into its market cap, has to outsell the top automakers put together. They need something at the Toyota Corolla price point to do that.
      • the_duke 4y ago
        Tesla is still a long way from covering demand, even with their current expensive models and with zero advertising on top. They have no real business justification to expand to cheaper models until they have enough spare capacity. Building factories and the required battery supply chains isn't fast or easy. Model 2 and 1 will come eventually.
        • ummonk 4y ago
          Yeah, Tesla will certainly hit the same dilemma as the other growth companies, but it hasn’t gotten anywhere near there yet.
      • r-w 4y ago
        Or a brand. Look how far branding got Apple!
• harha 4y ago
  Netflix really had a value proposition a few years ago before all the other players came in. A good selection of rotating movies and shows, sharing accounts with a good model (# of simultaneously running screens). This was way better than cable TV and more convenient than torrent. Now it’s mostly quite mediocre content across services that easily cost $100+ a month, so we’re back to the old cable days in terms of cost and content and instead of switching channels we’re endlessly browsing the library for something interesting. The consumers just aren’t complete idiots. - lower quality productions (not the necessarily the cost, just not interesting) - less good external content - at the same time constantly increasing prices and/or charging for things that were free at a given tier If you keep charging more for less, people eventually will get off their lazy asses and cancel the subscription. One other thing that may have contributed: trying to keep users on the platform for long makes it more difficult to have good content left that hasn’t been watched. Edit: formatting
  • bumper_crop 4y ago
    >The consumers just aren’t complete idiots. The consumers kinda are the idiots here. They know what they like, but they have no idea why the content is getting worse. Why shows are being pulled. Companies that had their content on Netflix realized they were facing an existential crisis. Ever played Settlers of Catan and find out another player had 9/10 victory points? Everyone does everything in their power to not trade with that player, send the robber, and limit their chances. It's the same with Netflix. All other studios realized at some point Netflix would become so strong, even the royalties Netflix pays for their content would put them out of business permanently. There is no amount of money Netflix can pay for other studios content. Consumers only see the net effect of good shows going away, and imagining reasons why.
    • Guthur 4y ago
      That's not stupid consumers that's people not rightly giving a f what nonsense licensing setups requested by ip owners and enforced by a government monopoly on force. The consumer just wanted to watch the media, which is fair because they probably just spent 8 hours at some nonsense unnecessary job and would like to switch off... again. No vote no power.
• ChuckMcM 4y ago
  I found that analysis of the big picture problems fairly insightful. Many of the stories I hear about working in production companies, especially during the big Amazon/Netflix competition for projects, felt exactly like the heyday of the dot com boom. Money was being thrown at anyone who had a 'hint' even of creating something big and as a result a lot of money got spent pretty uselessly. I've also been a long time Netflix user from their DVD days to the present and while I did not feel like streaming would be the hit they did (I was totally wrong on that count!) I note that the streaming model had an interesting impact on control. Specifically with the DVD model, Netflix could go out and buy some number of copies of a movie as soon as it hit the shelves and now you, as a subscriber, could watch it without forking over the $20 - $30. Since they had lots and lots of DVDs you could always find something you would probably like. But in the streaming model this changes. Now the people who "own" the content just rent it to Netflix and once that rental term expires it goes "poof" and vanishes. Two things then emerged, the content holders created their own streaming service and stopped renting out their content, and Netflix's catalog of things to watch shrank so a customer who watched something before and liked it, and then went to watch it again couldn't find it. That customer experience, going to a service for a product that was available before but isn't now, and is only available for additional money elsewhere, is a strong negative influence on the "let's find something to watch on Netflix habit." Once the state of mind changes to (it probably won't be on Netflix any more) then the only reason you watch Netflix is because they advertised something new and you're going to watch it this month before it vanishes. And that can lead to months where you don't watch Netflix at all, and of course that often results in re-evaluating what you are spending per month on a service you aren't using every month. The market response has been pretty predictable, groups who each sign up for one streaming service and share their passwords with other members of the group so they get access to the aggregated catalogs of a number of services with the monthly cost of one service. Service providers have hinted that they are going to "clamp down" on that sort of thing, but one thing that Netflix proved quite clearly was that "Piracy" was a response to cost and cost alone. Content providers really only have two choices[1], share the content at a price people are willing to pay, or collect nothing as your content is shared for free. There is some hysteresis here, people put up with a lot of crap until they flip over to "alternative access methods" and then it takes a much lower price than you could have gotten before to get them to switch back to the paid access method. [1] There is a third choice, lock up the content forever, but that is like the null choice for most content providers.
• robg 4y ago
  This narrative is tiresome. Squid game alone was worth the monthly cost. There’s just good competition now.
• smitty1e 4y ago
  We have an account, and I sat down to watch some classics. Nothing. It would be great to view, for example, all of the Best Picture winners, or work my way through all of the film noir. Give the customer what they want.
• Patrol8394 4y ago
  Deal breaker for me was that tons of series will stop after season 1. Yeah and the content nowadays is mediocre. I have switched to Disney+ and Apple Tv
• daenz 4y ago
  >Its stock price collapsed by more than 35 percent Wednesday, erasing more than $50 billion in value in a single day. For people who want to be able to tax unrealized gains like stock, what is the plan for these kinds of events? Would stockholders receive a credit from the IRS when the valuation dips?
  • arrosenberg 4y ago
    The holders would pay less in taxes when the valuation drops, why would they get a credit? Also, the only people who would be subject to those taxes are already extraordinarily wealthy, so who cares?
    • danhak 4y ago
      Because the policy will bankrupt founders. Imagine you're the founder of NFLX and you held $1 billion worth of stock at the peak last year ($690 / share) The IRS says you owe $300 million (30% of your unrealized gains) Fast forward to spring 2022. The stock has crashed to $186, your shares are worth only $270 million but you owe a $300 million tax bill. Not to mention the impossible situation this creates for corporate governance and the general functioning of a business when founders / board members are constantly forced to divest and therefore no one can know who will even control the company from quarter to quarter.
      • arrosenberg 4y ago
        The majority of the hypothetical Reed Hastings in that scenario are also borrowing against and investing off of that $1B in equity. Maybe he should have diversified better, and I don’t see why the average person should care.
    • logicalmonster 4y ago
      > The holders would pay less in taxes when the valuation drops, why would they get a credit? Perhaps you're not familiar with some of the proposals to tax unrealized gains or what this means. This means there have been serious proposals from so-called serious people to tax individuals when a stock they're holding goes up, even if they don't sell that. So somebody is making a point that nobody has made a serious proposal to give a similar credit for unrealized losses. It's just the government wanting to tax and take and take. > Also, the only people who would be subject to those taxes are already extraordinarily wealthy, so who cares? You've got it backwards. The already wealthy aren't the ones bothered by paying a bit more taxes on unrealized gains too much. If Warren Buffet had to pay an extra few million because a stock he held went up, he probably wouldn't really notice. It wouldn't even be a buzzkill on his day. In the event of a tax on unrealized gains, it's the middle class dude who made a great investment on the next Apple who is screwed over from holding for a few years because he has to sell the second the price went up just a bit to pay that tax.
• mullingitover 4y ago
  I helped drive that subscriber loss! The mistake for Netflix was the price increase - I've had a bunch of online video subscriptions kicking around, and when I got the notification that prices were going up, it served as a reminder that I really wasn't getting much value out of Netflix at the current price, so it made zero sense to put up with a price increase. This actually made me cancel Hulu while I was at it. It definitely doesn't help that it's about 99% certain that if there's a mainstream movie you want to watch, Netflix won't have it. No regrets, haven't felt like I was missing anything. After the pandemic the last thing I want to do is spend more time shut indoors staring at a screen. One comment about the article: > While Netflix has taken small steps to evolve its release model, particularly with unscripted shows, it refuses to experiment with weekly releases on its original scripted shows. One exec at rival streamer I talked with yesterday believes this is a huge mistake, if only because it makes it harder for Netflix to build those reliable franchises it so desperately needs more of. The only thing dumber than this idea is adding commercials, which they're planning, so I assume they'll also be dumb enough to start listening to idiots telling them to do weekly releases.
  • eyelidlessness 4y ago
    > I helped drive that subscriber loss! > […] > when I got the notification that prices were going up, it served as a reminder that I really wasn't getting much value out of Netflix at the current price A perfectly reasonable reaction. Netflix is still generally my primary streaming service, but mainly because the others are either a terrible UX for my setup (Hulu), won’t ever get me as a customer for ethical reasons (Amazon), or have content/catalog models like Netflix, only smaller catalogs (basically everything else that isn’t a cable provider). Netflix becoming a studio was great when it still offered licensed content I love. I could watch their originals and my favorites and things I’d put off watching. Now it feels like I have an HBO subscription I never asked for, where the only thing they offer is original content I don’t want to sift through to find out if it’s worthwhile.
  • rendall 4y ago
    > The only thing dumber than this idea is adding commercials, which they're planning... I will immediately cancel any service that has advertisements. One of them (I think Amazon) did not immediately show the video I asked for, but a preview of another video they think I might be interested in. Even that got my delete finger twitching.
• pc2g4d 4y ago
• UseStrict 4y ago
  I cut my subscription at the end of 2021. The comfort shows I'd watch from time to time were leaving to other platforms, and Netflix was pumping out so many originals that it would take forever to find a show I'd like, then they'd go ahead and cancel it after a season or two. The nail in the coffin was the price hike - in Canada it went to $20.99 for 4k streaming, for something I was rage watching maybe once a week. It's just not worth the money to spend so long hunting for content, only to be disappointed.
• lumost 4y ago
  I think Netflix is learning a hard fact about the content business. Hits are hard. All the shows I’ve gotten into on netflix get cancelled once the cast demands to much money around season 4. This strategy makes sense if you can turn around a new hit next year to replace it, but having to deliver an exponentially growing set of hits is really hard. At this point just getting cast and crew who want to work with you is a challenge with 5 other major content streamers. If given the choice, I’m sure hot talent would prefer a studio that won’t fire them once it’s a smash hit.
  • ALittleLight 4y ago
    It's interesting that Netflix's hits seemed to come towards the start of their career producing content. If the issue is "hits are hard" then I would've expected them to struggle first. My intuition is that it's more like statistics led Netflix to produce low quality content that performed on their target metrics. This strategy led Netflix to a local optimum that is far from a global optimum. Plus, given market conditions, that local optimum is starting to be, objectively, pretty bad.
• nullcipher 4y ago
  Netflix's content is truly shocking. They were so enjoyable back when they were not creating their own content. Cancelled a long time ago.
• t8y 4y ago
  It's clear they are just outclassed by Disney+. People thought the hard part was creating the streaming platform, the content was mostly licensed with a few exclusives. It's now clear that exclusive content is everything. Disney have new content every month (ie. Moon Knight -> Obi-Wan Kenobi) and high quality movies like Luca and Turning Red. Netflix's strategy seems to be just get big name actors and mediocre creatives and hope it works. The Adam Project might have a lot of viewers but how many of those are just because it's there? How many people would say "The Adam Project is my favorite movie" and how does that compare to Luca? Netflix has been essentially making the equivalent of direct to DVD movies as its whole strategy while Disney has been bringing their best. They are becoming The Asylum of the streaming world.
  • snek_case 4y ago
    I feel like Netflix always kind of had an issue with poor taste. They have crappy reality shows and pseudo-documentaries about how the aliens build pyramids. A metric fuckton of content that caters to people with below average intelligence. In addition to this content being unhealthy because you either don't learn anything, or are actively being fed falsehoods, I think it just gives the platform a poor image. It's kind of sad because Netflix had over 5 billion in net income last year, and 30B in total revenue. Suppose that Netflix can afford to spend 15-20B on content a year. You could do so much with that money. I mean, 20B is 20 thousand million dollars. Assuming you take just 5 billion and fund indie movies at 20M a pop, you could produce 250 indie movies a year. If they were smart about it, they would give scholarships to kids coming out of movie school. Create movie making contests. Give a lot of fresh young creative people a shot, and keep funding the creatives that produce the better reviewed content... Like, you know... A meritocracy of sorts... Most people coming out of movie school never get to produce movies. There's just a lot of wasted talent out there. If you have tens of billions of dollars, there's no excuse for producing shit content year after year.
    • closedloop129 4y ago
      >A metric fuckton of content that caters to people with below average intelligence. The big question is how big is the fraction of people who are below average intelligence. Depending on that ratio, it could make sense to produce content for that part of the population ... Additionally, highly intelligent people earn more money and don't have to buy content wholesale. They can afford to buy movies directly which means that each view of intelligent content is worth much more. Now, how can Netflix integrate that into their platform? There won't be any bargains left. Even young talented creatives will demand what they are worth. There have to be different streaming services for different quality levels. Netflix has decided to serve some fraction of the bell curve and leaves other fractions to others.
• 627467 4y ago
  I will tell you an anecdote: I pay and share subscriptions to 3 different streaming services with extended family. The only service we would never drop is Netflix. Maybe this will change. Maybe this is just anecdotal. But IMO Netflix brand/service has gained staying power compared to other streaming competitors.
• yalogin 4y ago
  Netflix is not dead but they focused too much on the R rated content for grown ups and relied too much on algorithms for content too. The reason why cable and free television stays PG-PG13 is that is where the bulk of the population wants to stay. Watching television really is really a family thing even with the explosion of screens. Of course they unearthed and exploited the lack of content for grown ups but it’s obvious they exhausted that market. Once Disney showed up with family content it was a no brainer for people like me who stopped watching Netflix a long time ago and just kept paying to cancel
  • oneoff786 4y ago
    I’m curious if this resonates with others. I’m not one to explore the catalog in depth but it definitely isn’t my experience. Most stuff seems solidly PG13 at a glance.
  • throwaway675309 4y ago
    I don't know that I necessarily agree with this, some of the more mature shows are also simultaneously their most popular offerings. (Squid game, black mirror, the Witcher, etc.) And I for one am glad when a show is rated TV-MA because it means that they can be more authentic and unfettered in terms of the vision for the show instead of watering it down to appeal to a broader demographic. "Television is for families" is purely your subjective anecdotal experience. There is a reason the expression is "Netflix and chill", not "Disney and chill". Conversely, if you're not interested in yet another marvel show or movie, Star Wars or old animated movies, Disney+ is a desert.
• 999900000999 4y ago
  >Netflix is further eroding its connection to audiences through its unwritten mandate to end the vast majority of its new shows after no more than three seasons, with only the very biggest (or most cost-efficient) scripted hits lasting longer. One of my favorite shows by far was Disjointed. It was a very silly Stoner take on Roxanne. Cancelled after 2 seasons. I get the feeling Netflix doesn't want niche shows, everything needs to be Squid Game. I imagine experimenting with other rev models might work. You can already buy Stranger Things on DVD. Let me buy the shows I want a la carta. I've found Disney Plus / Hulu to be a better deal. Surprisingly stuff like Marvel What IF tends to be much more enjoyable compared to whatever animation Netflix is putting out. Hulu has a better back catalog, HBO Max has a better bang for buck when it comes to investing my time. The shows have decent writing. Half the Netflix shows feel like you took a 20 year old English major, paid them in Blue Moon and asked them to write a script. The best thing ends up being the show premise, once I have to sit down and watch it I'm not having a good time
  • seibelj 4y ago
    I feel like Netflix shows / movies are written by algorithm. As much as management wants AI / data science to be drive creativity, the human soul and character simply isn’t replicable. Their original shows often feel hollow and lack depth. For example Space Force was probably the least funny thing I have ever watched and had all the elements of a show that should have been a hit, but somehow failed so spectacularly that everyone involved must cringe the moment it’s mentioned. Fear Street was an abomination. Just terrible quality. If anything I hope they keep making documentaries as they are far more interesting than their scripted content.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• unknownus3r 4y ago
  I don’t get it; they lost a ton when they banned Russia but if you take that out they did get subscribers overall. Oversold?
  • Izkata 4y ago
    The numbers are: * +500,000 outside of Russia * -700,000 due to cutting off Russia * = -200,000 so far that's already happened * +2,500,000 previously projected future * -2,000,000 now projected for the future The last two bullets are what the article is about.
• zucker42 4y ago
  The problem with the article is it assumes that Netflix's drop in stock price is due to mistakes the company has made. In my view, the reason Netflix has been less successful than shareholders expected has more to do with what its competitors are doing well rather than what its doing poorly. Netflix's CEO once famously said that Netflix had to become HBO before HBO could become Netflix. While Netflix has made steps to become a major content producer, the nature of copyright law means that they are simply starting from a disadvantage. Now that the old Hollywood juggernauts have launched their own streaming services, it's a lot harder for Netflix to grow.
• Ericson2314 4y ago
  IMO focusing on one company in what seems like an industry-wide bubble bursting always struck me as myopic.
• brentos99 4y ago
  I think if Netflix changed it’s policy of just canceling series to giving them an ending, people would be less pissed. The ending could just be a limited episode conclusion similar how to they ended sense8.
• indigodaddy 4y ago
  Did this get artificially tanked from the frontpage or was it natural descension?
• tomcam 4y ago
  > “Two hundred million was a fairly easy climb,” one industry vet who works at a streamer told me Wednesday. Yeah fuck you. I am a Netflix subscriber with little to no love for the company. The algorithm fails for me and I detest the user interface. If Netflix disappeared tomorrow my life would be barely affected. But getting 200 million subscribers to anything, much less a paid service, is a massive achievement. If that person knows so much, why are they anonymous? If they’re that brilliant, they could go out and start a 200 million subscriber business themselves. Because that’s the easy part. Any chimpanzee could do it. The tricky part is getting to 300 million or 500 million.
  • skippedtoc 4y ago
    200 million "was" easy climb (for Netflix). I don't think it meant its easy in general. More of Netflix made it look like it's easy, (for Netflix). Now we see reaching 500 is not easy for them.
    • tomcam 4y ago
      Not sure why you are simply rephrasing what the article said. And I am telling you, acquiring customers is hard.
  • NeverFade 4y ago
    The article makes some good arguments elsewhere, but this is one of its weaker points. There's no explanation of why 200 million is "fairly easy" while 300 million is "hard". If Netflix was at 300 million today, the magic "hard" number would be 400 million, and 300 would have been the "easy" number.
    • tomcam 4y ago
      My point exactly
• scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  “Content is King” We all know this, Netflix knows this. And yet for some reason for years they have been aiming for quantity and not quality. Money is not enough in this department and baseball metaphors don’t do justice illustrating just how hard it is to put together a team that has that special thing going on. Some would argue it’s impossible - teams like the one behind Better Call Saul are just extremely rare and can’t be rushed. The traditional system has sort of known this for a long time, I think. Netflix tried rushing. I’ve personally worked on a failed series season made by the company and it was a chaotic clusterfuck. So are their efforts in ordering and buying content haphazardly to stuff their library with something. Now they’re probably going to have to learn the slow quality development and bring back many of the traditional practices they threw out the window. This is a good thing for audiences though. I think we’re going to be seeing Netflix settle as one of many big content delivery platforms in the long term.
  • chaostheory 4y ago
    Imo the reason for this is because there isn’t one perfect show for everyone. If they have to cater to the world, then they have to cater to everyone’s tastes.
  • WillPostForFood 4y ago
    They were probably fooled by metrics. People were watching the crap, so it looked like crap was good enough (until it wasn’t).
    • andrelaszlo 4y ago
      Very true. They find something that's kind of amusing, then milk it until it bleeds (gross analogy, sorry...). "Nailed It", sure, I can watch it from time to time but it doesn't mean I will watch 150 other baking shows. Same thing with "Jessica Jones". I literally found articles about "The top 30 superhero shows on Netflix this year", trying to remember the name of this one. After a while you realize that the funny premise stops being engaging after a couple of episode and the spell is broken. I watch almost no Netflix these days but I got excited about the new season of Russian Doll, but despite an original script, it doesn't have the punch of the first season. Perhaps it's not just a money grab, but I would have preferred more risk-taking. Why not let created Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland, and Amy Poehler do something new and crazy instead of a season 2, for example?
• 55555 4y ago
  I’m bored of Netflix. They have simply gone the assembly line direction instead of the direction of art, at least for some big niches. For example, every True Crime docuseries on Netflix is the same crap. Once you’ve seen three, you’ve seen them all. They get each cop involved in a big empty room, sit them on a solitary chair, put a dramatic light above them, and shoot them in 4k. Then they direct it at a pace to bore the hell out of you. My business produces storytelling videos for e-commerce and we almost got into the television/entertainment business at one point, as it is simply so cheap to pump out middling quality documentaries. Stock photography and interviews and cheap-but-good editing. You’ll notice solo YouTubers are making great documentaries. I don’t know how they are spending so much money considering the quality of much of the crap they make. High schooler YouTubers make similar quality with their iPhones. There must be thousands of talented directors who haven’t been given their big break yet who have artistic ideas and would almost work for free to be given a chance to make a name for themselves. Give them resources and a chance and see who has what it takes. This is only one relevant factor, ofcourse. Unrelated: I’m currently trying out CuriosityStream so I feel less guilty for the time I spend watching TV. At least I’ll be learning something.
  • russelldjimmy 4y ago
    > …it is simply so cheap to pump out middling quality documentaries. Stock photography and interviews and cheap-but-good editing. You’ll notice solo YouTubers are making great documentaries. Reminds me of this hilarious video - https://youtu.be/9BUrNe3Vhtk https://youtu.be/9BUrNe3Vhtk
    • belter 4y ago
      Not only that was hilarious, but also grabbed at the same time the essence of Netflix, and all that is wrong with it. 300K a year Netflix producers...take notes.:-)
    • abbadadda 4y ago
      That was great thanks for sharing.
    • gernb 4y ago
• rendall 4y ago
  Interesting that this analysis seems to attribute Holland's defenestration as a response to an anticipated loss of Netflix subscribers. I read another analysis which had the causal relationship the other way: Holland's replacement by Bajaria more or less led directly to the loss of subscribers. I'm not sure what to think, but from an outside perspective, it feels like Holland was done dirty by her boss like that. It couldn't have been a smoother, more empathetic transition?
• Gareth321 4y ago
  I quit because I didn't like how all of their shows pushed an ideological message. I'm quite left leaning on most issues, but Netflix writers appear to believe that preaching progressive messages is all that's required to make a compelling narrative. If they had the compelling narrative too it might be more tolerable, but they don't.
  • aqme28 4y ago
    Do you have any examples?
    • colinmhayes 4y ago
    • supreme_berry 4y ago
      Nearly every video is extreme left propaganda like black actor playing English queen Charlotte. That was so dumb and disgusting to watch that a lot of people canceled subscription on that time.
      • scarface74 4y ago
        Yes, just like it was propaganda when DC had a Black lady playing an orange alien from Tamaran. It’s fiction
      • dkobia 4y ago
        Bridgerton, set in an alternate universe is a show that has had a pretty intense trigger effect. The idea of black people playing Regency era personalities is unacceptable for some despite being obviously far from historically accurate to the point of being classified as “dumb and disgusting”.
        • supreme_berry 4y ago
• hericium 4y ago
  Bubbling customers in one or two genres of content with the addition of some "trending" original series that Netflix is pushing at the time. Their support suggests creating multiple profiles to avoid bubbling. You can't even delete/replace/reset main profile - just need to skip it all the time. Most of original content is just crap produced to fill the library. Netflix creates more and more titles, not watching material. They are cancelling their own shows with such pace that I started avoiding investing time in their new content, assuming they will promptly fuck it up. Abundance of unnecessary sex scenes. It's almost like watching bad porn: -Ma'am, have you called about cable TV not working? (oh, they're gonna bang now); -Oh, I'm stuck with my head in the washing machine (he's gonna bang her now); -Teacher asks student to stay after class? (banging in 3.. 2...); Opening Netflix (ridiculous, out-of-place sex scenes no matter the content). Just create "soft porn" category already and let people choose. Production aiming at 100% engagement, giving viewer no time to think. Whatever the genre, every movie or show is unnecessarily action-packed like "Speed" (1994) or "Crank" (2006) making watching feel like work, not relax. Refreshing, thought-welcoming productions like Apple's "Severance" have little place on Netflix platform. > "This show was so good I couldn't stop watching. But would I watch it again? Hey, this wasn't good at all, I got played"
  • DixieDev 4y ago
    It's seems clear to my family and friends that they have some sort of checklist for writers that includes garbage like mandatory regular sex scenes. In my case, they have _finished_ a tiny tiny percentage of their shows. They tend to string viewers along with contrived new-but-very-similar problems each season, and then just cancel once viewership gets bored. No thanks, give me a show that has an ending. I think Disney has been better with their series in this regard. I've been watching a few shows that were planned with many seasons in mind, but instead of abruptly pulling the plug when viewership was lower than expected they gave them a final season that writers have been using to wrap things up really well. I can start a new show from them with a bit more confidence it'll get finished.
  • oriolid 4y ago
    You're so right about the sex scenes. Just before pandemic I saw Caligula. Back in the day it was notorious for the gratuitous sex and violence, and now it felt like yet another HBO show. I haven't had Netflix for a long time, sounds like it's the same but worse scripts now.
• noisy_boy 4y ago
  If I had only two features that I would have Netflix implement, they would be: - to add a setting to not show me stuff I've already watched (so that others who don't mind that, can continue to see their seen stuff). - add a "don't show me again" toggle (I know I can dislike but maybe I'm just tired of seeing that one particular video and am fine with other such content)
• heisenbit 4y ago
  Yesterday while on Netflix with my fire stick getting bored I wanted to leave. Suddenly I have to search the app exit button and it turns out it moved from the main menu on the left to the bottom right of the screen. A dark and desperate move. First time I thought seriously about leaving for good.
• mejutoco 4y ago
  IMO once the netflix model was validated it was impossible to license enough good titles (they knew they were valuable). Netflix pivoted to making their own shows under the premise that they have all the data. This is outside of their tech expertise and creates average content. I believe netflix should create video editing tools (commoditize your complement) and make it easy for almost professional film makers to upload content. The area between youtube and professional films could discover lots of talent and keep those rights cost cheap.
• jmacd 4y ago
  I highly recommend you check with your local/regional library to see what streaming services they will give you access to for free. My local library in Canada offers a couple of services that have a really interesting catalogue of films from all over the world as well as some recent classics. This is not the latest and greatest, but much of the content is far more interesting. The children's content on them is extremely good. If programming for kids is keeping you on Netflix, some of these (Kanopy, Hoopla) could easily eliminate your need for a paid subscription.
• gpayan 4y ago
  Interesting how we don't hear much about "big data" which - we were told back in 2013 starting with House of Cards [1] - was key to Netflix's success in picking new shows to produce. This part of the article is telling: >It’s why five or so years ago, anybody with a hint of success in TV (or movies) started getting a call from their rep saying, basically, “Netflix would like to write you a big check.” 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-of-cards-using-big-data-to-guarantee-its-popularity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-...
  • dudul 4y ago
    I'm also very puzzled by how the quality could degrade so much. I was sure that they had cracked the "formula" to create good content via big data analysis after House of Cards. My guess, and I have nothing to back it up other than external empirical observation, is that they didn't like what the big data revealed. The output didn't fit The Message, or The Ideology. So they ignored it. They decided to use the good ol' twitter mobs to Gaughan the success of a show/concept instead.
    • dudul 4y ago
      * to gauge the success
  • conradfr 4y ago
    I'm not sure you really needed Big Data to bet on an adapted successful TV show with a successfully actor directed by a successfully director.
• bruhhh 4y ago
  this is sorta of elitist article that people cant relate to. One of the major reasons why people are leaving netflix is because their sub is expensive af compared to all the other streaming services. I could sub to 4 different major streaming services for cheaper than the mid-tier sub on netflix. I'm glad to see them lose sub and look forward to see their complete fall for being greedy tools
• langsoul-com 4y ago
  Didn't they want to make second screen content? Thus relatively unengaging content?
• alangibson 4y ago
  Fragmentation of must-watch content across many streaming services will drive a lot of people back to torrenting. Netflix was beloved because it was convenient, meaning everything you wanted was in one place. Now the things you want are spread out across many services. By comparison a good tracker that has everything you want is more convenient vs searching a half dozen services.
• stormdennis 4y ago
  I used to subscribe to Sky Sports. It had everything I was really interested as well as lots that I never watched. Then the market fragmented and rights to certain sports were distributed among three broadcasters. Suddenly I could no longer watch many of the games I was interested in, I'd have needed three subscriptions instead of one. The fact that Sky didn't reduce their price didn't help. I ended up dropping Sky and taking out a subscription with an overseas service that had all the games and I could watch via a vpn. Then they tightened that up and the vpn method no longer worked. Now I just pirate the games I want to see. It feels like the same thing is happening to Netflix with Disney, Hulu, Amazon etc.
• gandutraveler 4y ago
  It's what happens when you believe that tech can solve everything. Netflix thought they can automate makings shows with some predefined story templates. I mean it works for few shows but then people notice the pattern. Creativity should be organic.
• papito 4y ago
  HBO is still the master of curation and talent scouting/development. While Netflix throws tens of millions of dollars on brainless scripts and big stars, HBO diligently shepherds the material it likes to completion, with talent that is great but that will not break the bank. HBO does not use stars - it makes stars. For all the talk of Netflix not being a family but a team, it sure does sound like their content division management is pretty "tight", regardless of results. Did they think they were going to coast on the House of Cards forever?
• somehnacct3757 4y ago
  The main reason I avoid Netflix shows is that their formula insists on a cliffhanger season finale, but there is no promise of another season. Many shows quite literally have no conclusion, ending in their version of the second act. Sci-fi nerds are somewhat used to this; it was a problem even when cable tv was the dominant model. Netflix has somehow managed to bring this sour note to every genre.
• danpalmer 4y ago
  There’s another issue at play here: competition for time. There are competitors, that’s a given. People subscribe to multiple services because one does not have all the content. That’s a given. Therefore Netflix is competing for the time that viewers actually spend watching it, vs watching other services they pay for. If they end up watching less Netflix than, say, Disney+, guess which one they’ll cut if there’s a cost of living crisis? In this market, I believe the best strategy is a small amount of high quality content. Disney+ is probably the best balance of this, and Apple TV+ is probably not a bad bet either, considering it’s also the cheapest service.
• fma 4y ago
  I hate it when people who have no context of the economy throws in the stock price as a point of data. Author is clearly bias. What tech stock has not plummeted in the last few months? If you want to include financial data maybe consider that Walmart and Target both had lower profits, lower revenue resuting their stock price plummeted the most in decades? What "bad habits" do they have? Target and Walmart are bellwether for consumer spending. If consumers are buying less essential items, maybe a stresming service is going to get cut too? Maybe....just maybe....people can't spend as much money anymore?
  • fma 4y ago
    Wasn't able to edit my original comment - wanted to clarify their revenue increased year over year, but missed expectation.
• nemo44x 4y ago
  It’s more about how TikTok has taken over such a huge portion of the engagement hours basket. Hard to justify a paid sub when there’s a tool that sends you content for free and the only choice you have to make is to not watch something. Parents: don’t let your kids anywhere near TikTok.
  • samhw 4y ago
    How on earth is TikTok a competitor to Netflix?!
• andrewclunn 4y ago
  Does anyone else remember when the Amy Schumer comedy special got panned, and then Netflix got rid of the star ratings? They put placating Hollywood and traditional creators over serving customers. When you focus on securing supply over meeting demand, you lose touch with the customer. These poison seeds were planted long ago, and only now are we seeing them bloom.
• mkl95 4y ago
  Netflix's algorithms are very good at offering interesting content for a short period of time, like a few weeks. Even when I'm crunching at work and can only watch Netflix a few hours a week, I end up running out of interesting content. What follows is several weeks where I find out some movie or show that was released last year is not available on Netflix yet, or some old stuff is not available. Eventually Netflix release some decent content, which temporarily fixes their APIs responses. Rinse and repeat.
• bezospen15 4y ago
  So much talk of Netflix but nothing about YouTube TV which is 3x the cost
  • batiudrami 4y ago
    YouTube tv has live sport; completely different value proposition.
• oxfordmale 4y ago
  One of my Netflix bad habits is fast forwarding through predictable scenes. A lot of their series appear to be padded out to make up a series instead of a long feature film, and as a result I find myself fast forwarding through at least 50% of a series. Time wise I am watching it all, however, engagement is self evidently lowrr
  • bdavisx 4y ago
    But that's not unique to Netflix - I can remember thinking how much better '24' would have been w/o all the filler crap - but then they wouldn't have been able to make a "real time" TV show (well, they could have, but they didn't). Also I tried watching the reboot of "Kung Fu" a few weeks ago - wow, there's more Asian family drama filler than there is actual "Kung Fu". It seems like the filler stuff is everywhere now. But then again, back in the day of network tv shows when they did ~26 episodes per season, there were entire episodes that felt like fillers.
    • oxfordmale 4y ago
      Not unique to Netflix, however, most other streaming platforms also broadcast their series on old fashioned television channels. Netflix may solve this problem by introducing adverts on their cheaper plans.
• MrMan 4y ago
  After years of ignoring Netflix I love derry girls and the viking shows
• MrMan 4y ago
  This isn't technically, it's content creation. An ancient business, and its hard to scale. Get the right magic group of executives who get lucky buying the right properties and you are a hero. Miss, and a bunch of HN users are actively angry with you.
• mrbonner 4y ago
  How about Netflix has this user created content like YouTube. It’s free with ad supported but for users who has paid plan the ads are removed. I would keep a paid account if the user created content in Netflix becomes popular like YouTube!
• Claude_Shannon 4y ago
  Netflix just has nothing interesting, and you have to sift through endless mediocre movies. Once I'm done with Arcane and then Love, Death & Robots, I'll unsubscribe. Just simply not worth it.
• zumu 4y ago
  It's hard for me to even know if Netflix has anything I'd like to watch these days. They've stripped back the browsing features so far, it's hard filter through all the trash, and I wind up just giving up.
• tbrockman 4y ago
  Everyone talks about their content being the problem, but it seems weird to me that Netflix’s original differentiating factor, platform and distribution, isn’t what they capitalized on. They could have sold their infrastructure and technology as a service before any other media company had a chance to build or buy their own. Now we have shitty platforms with great content, and vice-versa, instead of the best of both worlds with Netflix powering it all.
• FunnyBadger 4y ago
  All organizations mature into "fat, dumb and happy" which ultimately seals the doom of 95% of them. Even companies that were wonderful to work for (e.g. Hewlett-Packard when Bill & Dave were alive) have shriveled to irrelevance and horror. It happens. It's what's convinced me that leadership is all their is to prevent this - the 5% of organizations that thrive longer all have charismatic and ethical leadership that is focused on the mission being done "correctly". Every time.