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> and now streaming and internet have democratized access and content creation Unfortunately this has come with a real decrease in artistic/creative value. Fo

> and now streaming and internet have democratized access and content creation Unfortunately this has come with a real decrease in artistic/creative value. For all intents and purposes almost everything that Netflix now has on its platform is basically crap, I've last spent about half an hour trying to find something nice to watch but nothing. I would have settled on the spot for light but original comedy like "American Pie", but couldn't find it. The same goes for HBO Max (granted, the first season of "White Lotus" was ok-ish, but by the second season you could see half of the directorial and writers' takes coming from half a mile away).

narag 4y ago
I feel the same way. There are a few funny shows, like Succession, but most other series, even if they have an interesting start, decline very fast. Visually they're all OK to very good. But the writing is boring, often appalling.
- cudgy 4y ago
  This mirrors what I am seeing as well. Lazy writing that produces a reaction of “why did they even bother making this movie?” despite the good actors and videography. Is it because good writers are difficult to find or, as with the actors, are the writers being constrained as well either by the streaming business model or poor taste in story selection by the streaming execs? The emergence of generative AI might make this even worse, as it’s only a matter of time till these are used to churn out scripts; although some of these scripts are so bad, maybe it has already started? Anyway, I find myself terminating movies earlier and more readily than in the past due to the higher frequency of disappointing dialogue and story lines along with the fear of wasting my time. My response is cancelling streaming subscriptions for a year or so and then resubscribing for a few months in hopes that a few decent new pieces of content were created.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Yeah the writing is horrible on the vast majority of these new shows/movies, they've been able to cover it up with amazing production values and paying for high quality acting but once you are no longer dazzled by that the story just leaves you with nothing compelling. Part of it is they are just producing so much content that the marginal quality of each script that now gets made is lower, but I do think script writing is an art that has been reduced to a series of tricks and cliches and storytelling has massively suffered.
- jameshart 4y ago
  There are a lot of people who look at a streaming channel’s lineup and say ‘huh; they have one or two good shows but the rest is just awful’ Trouble is, they all are pointing to a different couple of shows. I mean, you’re aware that ‘Succession is the only good show’ is not an objectively true statement, right? That other people might disagree with you about that? So I don’t know what your prescription here is. Do you want to just be able to subscribe to SuccessionTV?
  - narag 4y ago
    I don't even like Succession so much, just didn't want to pick a fight with its many fans :) Actually it's an objetive fact that you can't say too loud that you don't like it, or else... anyway, I'd rather not talk too much about shows that I liked, disliked or started liking, later got disenchanted. It'd be distracting for the discussion. Since you asked: what I would like is just to buy Succession. Do you know what happens when you want to watch something that's not on any platform? There is this cambrian thing called Blu-ray or you go straight to precambrian with DVD. But if I'm not mistaken, there's no way to "buy" a digital copy of a movie or a series. Or even "rent" it. I don't really think I'd watch Succession a second time. Mostly everybody prefers torrents, if they're available, that not always happens, specially in other languages. If not, you need a Blu-ray reader and paying not so nice prices from Amazon. Add some reaping software if you don't quite believe that optical disks last a hundred years. If you come to think it, platforms really aren't. They're subscriptions to catalogs. Also moving catalogs. I've paused a season for some days, then found out that it had become pay-per-view at Amazon. I suspect that the real power of "platforms" is copy protection... again. Studios wouldn't allow non-DRM shops, so they insist in DRM in the browser and thus they've given all the power to the gatekeepers.
msh 4y ago
I have the opposite view, netflix and other streaming services have lots of good material while TV and movies before streaming rarely produced material I really wanted to watch.
- lommelun 4y ago
  I find this take absolutely incredible. Take any of the last 3 years, and then let’s compare that to the past, and let’s compare what came out in e.g. 2022 and 1992. That you think things have gotten better is one of those things that makes me lose hope for the future of humanity, because clearly we are so different that we’re perceiving completely, vastly different realities - we might as well be living in parallel universes and it’s just a perversion that we can perceive each other.
  - DownGoat 4y ago
    Maybe your just are getting old, and have different taste than what the movie/tv studios cater for today. If you were a kid during the 80ies, today kids are going to be looking at the content from that time with the same view as you were looking at stuff from the 40ies-60ies.
    - jen20 4y ago
      Speak for yourself. I was a kid in the 80s and would rather watch things produced in the 40s-60s than the mindless shit that pervades most streaming services today.
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        You get the benefit of hindsight, too. Picking some reasonable top 25 films from any previous decade to watch, starting with perhaps the 1930s, will tend to yield pretty damn good results. Of course, it's also the case that an absolute shitload of good-to-great films do come out every year. Very few (but some!) of them get huge budgets and a big marketing push, but there are lots of them. Average quality may be low, but the volume's so high that there's still more good stuff coming out than I, personally, can keep up with.

narag 4y ago

I feel the same way. There are a few funny shows, like Succession, but most other series, even if they have an interesting start, decline very fast. Visually they're all OK to very good. But the writing is boring, often appalling.

cudgy 4y ago
This mirrors what I am seeing as well. Lazy writing that produces a reaction of “why did they even bother making this movie?” despite the good actors and videography. Is it because good writers are difficult to find or, as with the actors, are the writers being constrained as well either by the streaming business model or poor taste in story selection by the streaming execs? The emergence of generative AI might make this even worse, as it’s only a matter of time till these are used to churn out scripts; although some of these scripts are so bad, maybe it has already started? Anyway, I find myself terminating movies earlier and more readily than in the past due to the higher frequency of disappointing dialogue and story lines along with the fear of wasting my time. My response is cancelling streaming subscriptions for a year or so and then resubscribing for a few months in hopes that a few decent new pieces of content were created.
fullshark 4y ago
Yeah the writing is horrible on the vast majority of these new shows/movies, they've been able to cover it up with amazing production values and paying for high quality acting but once you are no longer dazzled by that the story just leaves you with nothing compelling. Part of it is they are just producing so much content that the marginal quality of each script that now gets made is lower, but I do think script writing is an art that has been reduced to a series of tricks and cliches and storytelling has massively suffered.
jameshart 4y ago
There are a lot of people who look at a streaming channel’s lineup and say ‘huh; they have one or two good shows but the rest is just awful’ Trouble is, they all are pointing to a different couple of shows. I mean, you’re aware that ‘Succession is the only good show’ is not an objectively true statement, right? That other people might disagree with you about that? So I don’t know what your prescription here is. Do you want to just be able to subscribe to SuccessionTV?
- narag 4y ago
  I don't even like Succession so much, just didn't want to pick a fight with its many fans :) Actually it's an objetive fact that you can't say too loud that you don't like it, or else... anyway, I'd rather not talk too much about shows that I liked, disliked or started liking, later got disenchanted. It'd be distracting for the discussion. Since you asked: what I would like is just to buy Succession. Do you know what happens when you want to watch something that's not on any platform? There is this cambrian thing called Blu-ray or you go straight to precambrian with DVD. But if I'm not mistaken, there's no way to "buy" a digital copy of a movie or a series. Or even "rent" it. I don't really think I'd watch Succession a second time. Mostly everybody prefers torrents, if they're available, that not always happens, specially in other languages. If not, you need a Blu-ray reader and paying not so nice prices from Amazon. Add some reaping software if you don't quite believe that optical disks last a hundred years. If you come to think it, platforms really aren't. They're subscriptions to catalogs. Also moving catalogs. I've paused a season for some days, then found out that it had become pay-per-view at Amazon. I suspect that the real power of "platforms" is copy protection... again. Studios wouldn't allow non-DRM shops, so they insist in DRM in the browser and thus they've given all the power to the gatekeepers.

msh 4y ago

I have the opposite view, netflix and other streaming services have lots of good material while TV and movies before streaming rarely produced material I really wanted to watch.

lommelun 4y ago
I find this take absolutely incredible. Take any of the last 3 years, and then let’s compare that to the past, and let’s compare what came out in e.g. 2022 and 1992. That you think things have gotten better is one of those things that makes me lose hope for the future of humanity, because clearly we are so different that we’re perceiving completely, vastly different realities - we might as well be living in parallel universes and it’s just a perversion that we can perceive each other.
- DownGoat 4y ago
  Maybe your just are getting old, and have different taste than what the movie/tv studios cater for today. If you were a kid during the 80ies, today kids are going to be looking at the content from that time with the same view as you were looking at stuff from the 40ies-60ies.
  - jen20 4y ago
    Speak for yourself. I was a kid in the 80s and would rather watch things produced in the 40s-60s than the mindless shit that pervades most streaming services today.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      You get the benefit of hindsight, too. Picking some reasonable top 25 films from any previous decade to watch, starting with perhaps the 1930s, will tend to yield pretty damn good results. Of course, it's also the case that an absolute shitload of good-to-great films do come out every year. Very few (but some!) of them get huge budgets and a big marketing push, but there are lots of them. Average quality may be low, but the volume's so high that there's still more good stuff coming out than I, personally, can keep up with.