4 ms·

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?
- theodric 4y ago
  People complain that Netflix kills shows too soon. People complain that Netflix drags shows on past their prime. People complain.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    If only there was a number between 2 and 7!
  - atchoo 4y ago
    People want good stories told to a satisfying conclusion. Both cancellation and dragging on with no end in mind fail at this simple unsurprising wish. S2 of Russian Doll also fails because S1 felt like a mini-series that nailed it's landing. It was one of the few series Netflix had with some artistic integrity and they bust it open again for a "not as good" attempt to milk it.
  - danjac 4y ago
    The problem is not so much whether shows are killed to early or too late, but when you blindly follow metrics to determine either way. There are plenty shows pre-streaming that got killed prematurely (Firefly) and plenty that dragged on way past their prime (Simpsons) because of exec idiocy or internal politics or whatever that had little to do with whether the quality of the shows was good or whether they had found an audience or just needed time to grow. I think Netflix tried to avoid that by using data-driven analysis to determine whether to keep or kill a show, but it turns out you probably need some human in the decision chain with an experienced gut. Another problem is that you don't necessarily know whether a show is going to be popular upfront, so the writers try to have a self-contained story arc within a season. If it gets renewed you end up having to awkwardly start a new arc with characters that were pretty much "done" in terms of development. This is pretty obvious with Jessica Jones and Stranger Things, both of which were arguably much weaker in their second seasons.
- joshocar 4y ago
  One issue is that they don't keep writers and show runners around. Each season gets new writers so any magic there was in season one of lost in season two. The tone is the same but you lose something when you bring on me people. The do this because of the lag between seasons and the fact that they don't hire on writers, but rather contract them on a per season basis.
cameronh90 4y ago
Most of what I watched on Netflix was this cookie cutter rubbish, but what they don't know is I was usually just putting that on in the background or when falling asleep. Even though that accounts for 90% of what I watch, I cancelled Netflix because the 10% I actually care about isn't there now.
scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
Yes! It takes so much more to gain the kind of insight that is valuable for film/art. And it is very difficult to scale. I thought they were onto something when they were experimenting with the gamified Black Mirror stuff because A) it implied something totally new and proprietary in the artform and B) it could probably lead to more information and more feedback all around. Also, they never even tried to build any sort of community or conversation around anything on the platform. No creative form of discovery for different types of viewers. It’s just a one-way interface of content rectangles that are presented to you in algorithmic order. In my own personal view on this, I think we will see a whole plethora of boutique niche vod platforms built using off-the-shelf tech from the cloud providers. Netflix only had around a decade of a technological upper-hand and it’s been a couple years that anyone can build a VOD platform.
- thawaya3113 4y ago
  Netflix viewers used to be really good at rating movies and then getting recommendations based on those ratings. The Netflix ratings actually meant something once upon a time. And then, one day, Netflix just got rid of this. I’m still awestruck by the fact that they had this incredible and free source of data and they just relieved themselves of it.
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    Participation rate is significantly higher with the new ratings system. The text of the reviews are missed by me and likely you, of course, but most didn’t read them.
mrweasel 4y ago
Metrics can easily fool you on Netflix, because many will watch an entire bad season of a show. If you had to watch an episode a week, and you don’t care for the show, missing an episode one week will easily cause you to just drop the show and viewer number quickly drop off. On Netflix I’ve watch entire seasons of bad shows, because it’s easy, and it might get better and now I’ve already watched the first two episodes. What does happen, and which can’t be meassured, is how many shows I don’t start the second season at all, because season two of that other Netflix original was bad, so there’s a big risk this is as well. Part of the problem could be eliminated by moving to more classical episodical shows, rather that trying to make every show storylines. It would also make meassuring easier.
- freemint 4y ago
  And it would result in people not sticking around till the end of the season -> less views.

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?

theodric 4y ago
People complain that Netflix kills shows too soon. People complain that Netflix drags shows on past their prime. People complain.
- morelisp 4y ago
  If only there was a number between 2 and 7!
- atchoo 4y ago
  People want good stories told to a satisfying conclusion. Both cancellation and dragging on with no end in mind fail at this simple unsurprising wish. S2 of Russian Doll also fails because S1 felt like a mini-series that nailed it's landing. It was one of the few series Netflix had with some artistic integrity and they bust it open again for a "not as good" attempt to milk it.
- danjac 4y ago
  The problem is not so much whether shows are killed to early or too late, but when you blindly follow metrics to determine either way. There are plenty shows pre-streaming that got killed prematurely (Firefly) and plenty that dragged on way past their prime (Simpsons) because of exec idiocy or internal politics or whatever that had little to do with whether the quality of the shows was good or whether they had found an audience or just needed time to grow. I think Netflix tried to avoid that by using data-driven analysis to determine whether to keep or kill a show, but it turns out you probably need some human in the decision chain with an experienced gut. Another problem is that you don't necessarily know whether a show is going to be popular upfront, so the writers try to have a self-contained story arc within a season. If it gets renewed you end up having to awkwardly start a new arc with characters that were pretty much "done" in terms of development. This is pretty obvious with Jessica Jones and Stranger Things, both of which were arguably much weaker in their second seasons.
joshocar 4y ago
One issue is that they don't keep writers and show runners around. Each season gets new writers so any magic there was in season one of lost in season two. The tone is the same but you lose something when you bring on me people. The do this because of the lag between seasons and the fact that they don't hire on writers, but rather contract them on a per season basis.

cameronh90 4y ago

Most of what I watched on Netflix was this cookie cutter rubbish, but what they don't know is I was usually just putting that on in the background or when falling asleep. Even though that accounts for 90% of what I watch, I cancelled Netflix because the 10% I actually care about isn't there now.

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago

Yes! It takes so much more to gain the kind of insight that is valuable for film/art. And it is very difficult to scale. I thought they were onto something when they were experimenting with the gamified Black Mirror stuff because A) it implied something totally new and proprietary in the artform and B) it could probably lead to more information and more feedback all around. Also, they never even tried to build any sort of community or conversation around anything on the platform. No creative form of discovery for different types of viewers. It’s just a one-way interface of content rectangles that are presented to you in algorithmic order. In my own personal view on this, I think we will see a whole plethora of boutique niche vod platforms built using off-the-shelf tech from the cloud providers. Netflix only had around a decade of a technological upper-hand and it’s been a couple years that anyone can build a VOD platform.

thawaya3113 4y ago
Netflix viewers used to be really good at rating movies and then getting recommendations based on those ratings. The Netflix ratings actually meant something once upon a time. And then, one day, Netflix just got rid of this. I’m still awestruck by the fact that they had this incredible and free source of data and they just relieved themselves of it.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  Participation rate is significantly higher with the new ratings system. The text of the reviews are missed by me and likely you, of course, but most didn’t read them.

mrweasel 4y ago

Metrics can easily fool you on Netflix, because many will watch an entire bad season of a show. If you had to watch an episode a week, and you don’t care for the show, missing an episode one week will easily cause you to just drop the show and viewer number quickly drop off. On Netflix I’ve watch entire seasons of bad shows, because it’s easy, and it might get better and now I’ve already watched the first two episodes. What does happen, and which can’t be meassured, is how many shows I don’t start the second season at all, because season two of that other Netflix original was bad, so there’s a big risk this is as well. Part of the problem could be eliminated by moving to more classical episodical shows, rather that trying to make every show storylines. It would also make meassuring easier.

freemint 4y ago
And it would result in people not sticking around till the end of the season -> less views.