3 ms·

IIRC there was an internal “competition”, of sorts, between the two head original content buyers at Netflix. One took the HBO approach: buy high quality content

IIRC there was an internal “competition”, of sorts, between the two head original content buyers at Netflix. One took the HBO approach: buy high quality content, even if it’s expensive. The other had a spray and pray strategy: buy up all the cheap crap and hope you get a few hits. Long story short the Spray & Pray exec got promoted and the other exec got squeezed out. But now that all of the major studios have started their own streaming services (and have started being stingier with their licensing) original content is perhaps the most important driver of new subscriptions and subscription maintenance for a streaming platform. And it seems Netflix bet the house on building their library out of cheap crap like Emily in Paris and God’s Favorite Idiot with the occasional expensive (but still crappy) Ryan Reynolds action movie sprinkled in to keep things “fresh”. Netflix made a huge mistake when they went with the spaghetti against the wall strategy and for some reason they just keep doubling down to make their already shitty strategy even worse.

missedthecue 4y ago
I don't think Netflix had a choice. Who is selling good content anymore? HBO? They run their own thing now. Paramount? They've got their own thing now. Disney? They've got their own thing now. MGM? They're streaming through Amazon Prime now. Netflix was forced into this position by competition, not by internal decisions.
- thefounder 4y ago
  Netflix surely has a choice: to make quality movie series instead of the crap they push now. I'm the kind of person who used to watch the whole movie even if it was crap but netflix succeded in breaking this compulsive behaviour. It's just too much low quality content and the worst thing is that I can't even filter it out. Maybe there are few good movies but I'm not willing to watch all the crap just to find the very few diamonds in the mud/swamp. I think at some point people just give up and then avoid netflix like a plague. I still have a netflix subscription because it's shared with several family members but as soon as I get the OK from them I'm done with Netflix.
  - demadog 4y ago
    You’re not the 80%+ of consumers that eat up the cheap stuff and love it.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  I’m talking about original content. Not licensed. Netflix can buy a new series pitch the exact same way HBO and Paramount and Amazon Prime can.
mal-2 4y ago
That makes a lot of sense. The other thing I felt as a viewer was that any time a good show managed to get made, it would get canceled after two seasons at most. It became so commonplace that I've seen memes about it. If you're going to do spaghetti against the wall strategy, why wouldn't you continue to support shows that actually stick?
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > If you're going to do spaghetti against the wall strategy, why wouldn't you continue to support shows that actually stick? They almost certainly do, by the measures they use for sticking. The problem is that things that don't stick by their metrics are going to feel like they stuck to the people for whom it did work, so spray and pray strategy ends up with lots of individually-small, but large in aggregate, disappointed fandoms.

missedthecue 4y ago

I don't think Netflix had a choice. Who is selling good content anymore? HBO? They run their own thing now. Paramount? They've got their own thing now. Disney? They've got their own thing now. MGM? They're streaming through Amazon Prime now. Netflix was forced into this position by competition, not by internal decisions.

thefounder 4y ago
Netflix surely has a choice: to make quality movie series instead of the crap they push now. I'm the kind of person who used to watch the whole movie even if it was crap but netflix succeded in breaking this compulsive behaviour. It's just too much low quality content and the worst thing is that I can't even filter it out. Maybe there are few good movies but I'm not willing to watch all the crap just to find the very few diamonds in the mud/swamp. I think at some point people just give up and then avoid netflix like a plague. I still have a netflix subscription because it's shared with several family members but as soon as I get the OK from them I'm done with Netflix.
- demadog 4y ago
  You’re not the 80%+ of consumers that eat up the cheap stuff and love it.
elliekelly 4y ago
I’m talking about original content. Not licensed. Netflix can buy a new series pitch the exact same way HBO and Paramount and Amazon Prime can.

mal-2 4y ago

That makes a lot of sense. The other thing I felt as a viewer was that any time a good show managed to get made, it would get canceled after two seasons at most. It became so commonplace that I've seen memes about it. If you're going to do spaghetti against the wall strategy, why wouldn't you continue to support shows that actually stick?

dragonwriter 4y ago
> If you're going to do spaghetti against the wall strategy, why wouldn't you continue to support shows that actually stick? They almost certainly do, by the measures they use for sticking. The problem is that things that don't stick by their metrics are going to feel like they stuck to the people for whom it did work, so spray and pray strategy ends up with lots of individually-small, but large in aggregate, disappointed fandoms.