15 ms·

Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

150 points by supertimor 3y ago

monero-xmr 3y ago
The economy goes from boom to bust, bust to boom, new technologies and ideas come, the novelty wears off and reality sets in (but the gems stick around!), so on and so forth. One thing that was unique this cycle was the extended period of near-zero interest rates in the rich world - this made the boom very big. I’m not sure it’s “Silicon Valley” thinking other than as a euphemism for subsidizing losses in hopes of future profits. But now interest rates are up, money is expensive, and justifying investment when 5% return is guaranteed means you need to promise significantly over 5% return. Junk bonds are one thing but highly speculative investments like VC are less attractive. It’s sad that Hollywood creatives are struggling but they were part of a bubble, just like tech and biotech. Will be a tough 2 to 7 years.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  >>The economy goes from boom to bust, bust to boom, it does not have to. boom and bust is a direct result of fiat currency and manipulation of that currency by central banks
  - contravariant 3y ago
    Currency is the lifeblood of the system known as a state, what exactly would you consider an alternative? Surely you're not suggesting a gold standard would solve the issue?
    - truSo 3y ago
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    - born2L8 3y ago
      [dead]
    - myownpetard 3y ago
      No, they are almost certainly suggesting crypto would solve the issue...
      - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        See… it’s a database… but no one owns it! And then…
      - contravariant 3y ago
        I mean that's just a gold standard with internet gold. Anyway I'd also like to express my sympathies to the moderators here, as I seem to have upset a whole botnet of them.
        Turskarama 3y ago
        Crypto is the opposite of the gold standard. Instead of backing currency with a physical object with inherent value, it's backed by absolutely nothing and grows at a pace governed by people whose primary goal is to benefit off a pyramid scheme. Fiat currency gets a bad rap because it can be mismanaged, but a metal backed currency isn't compatible with rapid growth and we've yet to find a better alternative.
        Ekaros 3y ago
        And with gold. Dealing with actual physical gold is lot of work. And with any type of certificates be it paper or digital someone will immediately start playing games... And thus you can not trust them.
        contravariant 3y ago
        I'm not saying crypto is like a gold standard, I'm saying it behaves more as a commodity (like gold) than a currency. There's a couple of properties that make gold really useful as a form of money (rare but available, easily divisible, easy to transport) some of which are shared by crypto. The main difference is that gold also has some intrinsic value, but I reckon most of its value comes from its use a store of value. If not convincingly gold looking jewellery should have a similar price, and I don't think that's the case. Not sure if a metal backed currency is harder to mismanage. Lowering the metal content in coins or simply lowering the corresponding amount of metal have both happened. I'm pretty sure the US simply reneged on their promise to exchange promissory notes for gold at some point. Frankly I think that no matter the currency bankers are going to abstract it into something that they can work with eventually.
    - kgo6 3y ago
      [dead]
    - hejrj 3y ago
      [dead]
    - nfkfkfk 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      >>Currency is the lifeblood of the system known as a state, Correct, which is the primary reason I oppose it. I consider the state to be part of the problem with human society >>what exactly would you consider an alternative? I dont proscribe a single "alternative" nor do I believe an single alternative should be mandated by a state, nor do I believe it is the proper role of a state to control the medium of exchange
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        So you're just blaming a Complex and ingrained societal concept without offering a better model(s)? It's fun to do it with small tech projects but world commerce probably needs a bit more thought considered before attacking it.
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    Fiat currency and the central banks were the direct result of the boom-bust cycle.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      Fiat currency is the result of trying to finance WW1. The propaganda reason was to even out the boom-bust cycle, of course that promise was never fulfilled.
      - JetSpiegel 3y ago
        The US only left the Gold Standard in the Nixon administration.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    It's the management of the fiat currency that's part of the problem, not the fiat currency itself. Fundamentally it's human laziness and corruptablility, both actively and passively. But it's also basic human nature in reaction to stock market bubbles and the fomo of getting rich quick. There aren't enough rules and regulation around stock market trading, or at least they're not enforced well enough, to maintain some kind of rationality. ... and it still may not actually be possible. But there's little effort to reign it in because the powers that be tend to massively profit from the status quo.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > boom and bust is a direct result of fiat currency Because there was no boom and bust before fiat…
  - connicpu 3y ago
    Ah yes, back in the days when money was based on the gold standard we never had recessions or depressions!
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      Yes, the currency was always entirely trustworthy... No one lied or played games... I wonder how many of modern day businesses would be ready to deal with real physical gold, silver or whatever. As any digital or paper based one can't really be trusted in long run.
prpl 3y ago
ha, it’s definitely techs fault, and absolutely not related to all the ways hollywood gets creative with accounting when it comes to paying residuals.
taeric 3y ago
I support the strikes and hope it comes to a good conclusion; but this feels a touch forced, honestly. I get that it is in vogue to blame silicon valley, but hollywood has a littered history of killing their goose, as it were. For fun, consider that if netflix had stuck to the DVD model, they could still be profitable. You don't need a special license to buy a dvd and rent it out to anyone. Just as you don't need a special license to loan or sell a dvd to a friend. You bought it and you can do that. Now, if studios had their way, they would kill this. Hard. Indeed, they can refuse to sell dvds to companies that they think will then sell to anyone that is renting out in this way. They have tried that with redbox, from my quick google. That is all to say, no, SV is not the root of the problem here. Atrocious licensing deals and ridiculously baroque rules around streaming/broadcast are far harder to comprehend than anything out of SV. Largely from the influence of hollywood...
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  Let me put it in perspective for you: Hollywood the actors and writers are on strike because Hollywood, the money making machinery decided to replace them with a product from SV. I don’t care for Hollywood and indeed it has gotten quite garbage anyway but I do support the actors and writers striking because they can. For the rest of us it remains to be seen how we’re going to handle it or whether we boil slowly.. In a way they may determine our fate as well. Imagine one scenario where the strike flops, AI is implemented as replacement and all goes well. In this scenario we’re more or less going to follow the same. I let other scenarios play out however your imagination desires
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - darepublic 3y ago
    The non unionized would have no recourse regardless. Except going outside the current game
    - mschuster91 3y ago
tekla 3y ago
I continue to wonder how much studios are ACTUALLY hurt by this strike. The studios have reserves of money, they still get money from streaming existing content. And short term they can still release content that are in post-prod enough to release. On the other hand, the public supports of the strike amounts to ... wanting new TV shows and movies. It's annoying for many I'm sure, but its not exactly something that keeps you alive.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  The studios burned through lots of money for the streaming boom, and the investors want returns from their burned money right about now. At the other end, streaming services are stuffed with content. I have no proof, but I suspect viewers will learn than the back catalog is pretty good.
  - DriverDaily 3y ago
    They’re stuffed with content, but much of the content is of poor quality. The good stuff everyone has seen, and you can attract new viewers with a new show that is good.
    - zabzonk 3y ago
      but the new shows, written by those striking writers, aren't good - rings of power, she-hulk etc. etc.
      - DriverDaily 3y ago
        Yes, and that’s because they’re focused on quantity over quality. And if that’s your strategy, you can do it with AI.
    - woobar 3y ago
      They have 30-40 years worth of content. I agree, majority is bad. But there is still plenty of stuff to watch. Plus, rewatching some old great show often is more rewarding than consuming all this new drek.
brucethemoose2 3y ago
Yeah. I drink genAI koolaid. I run llama and other transformers models daily. ...But what some CEOs are saying and doing is just loony.
AlbertCory 3y ago
That's right, LA Times! No one in the whole history of the world ever succumbed to Irrational Exuberance before. It was Big Tech that brought that plague down on us. Of course, it was 1996 when Alan Greenspan coined the phrase, before Google & Amazon were big, so we have to cover up that fact.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
"The boom times are over. Executives know it. Wall Street knows it. And the story that we're in a revolutionary moment of technological transformation will run out of gas soon." "Wildly profitable tech companies are citing an as-yet notional recession to make deep workforce cuts. They may have another agenda."
- bagacrap 3y ago
  I wouldn't have ever detected this supposed recession if I hadn't been constantly warned of it by the media
  - Turskarama 3y ago
    There's a two speed economy. If you're in the low speed part earning less than the median then you're already in recession. If you're in the high speed part you will be in recession when you stop being able to extract money from the low speed economy.
    - bagacrap 3y ago
      As seductive as that story is, the data doesn't bear it out. Hourly workers have made huge gains in the last three years at the expense of salaried workers, and flyover states are turning the tables on coastal states. Look at: real hourly wages and unemployment figures.
      - Turskarama 3y ago
        I have some fairly big gripes with the way inflation adjustion is calculated. Mainly: I don't think it properly covers the difference between discretionary vs non discretionary spending across different income levels. Ultimately, if you're poor, the only weightings that _actually_ affect you are (in order) food, housing, transportation, and energy. Everything else including healthcare ultimately doesn't become part of the equation, because you can't afford it. It doesn't matter if cars are cheaper if you can't afford to buy one anyway, it doesn't matter if drugs are cheaper if you can't afford your prescription anyway, and it doesn't matter if restaurants are cheaper if you can't afford to eat out anyway. Pretending like the price of consumer electronics (which can be a big one off spend, but amortised over the several years they last are fairly small) or plane trips matters at all to the spending power of poor people is laughable.
majormajor 3y ago
The interplay between SV in the form of Netflix and Hollywood in the last 15 years of streaming wars is interesting but the author loses the plot a bit in trying to connect to Uber, WeWork, etc. By the time those companies were making waves the Hollywood trends were already in motion. Netflix made waves for sure with original content, but if you look at in another light, it was just an extension of what HBO and other cable networks had already started doing. And Hollywood initially was much more concerned with Youtube and piracy than Netflix, see the introduction of Hulu as a free ad-supported broadcast-network-based "TV from last night" alternative to piracy. Hulu borrowed the back catalog model from Netflix as streaming grew, and then eventually started doing its own originals too, which was then also copied by everyone else, including Youtube, ironically enough. And this was a boon for writers and actors and studious, but at the same time the contracts weren't particularly well thought out (see how some stuff has now been pulled from streaming altogether because the views weren't seen as enough to support paying whatever was needed to make it available at all per contract) or actor/writer friendly in terms of residuals. So it's a tough time on the backend now since hardly anyone who tried to throw money at content and hope profit followed succeeded (hi Quibi), and the market was oversaturated, PLUS the deals got increasingly talent-unfriendly since the syndication residuals and similar dried up. And now there's the specter of AI too! But all that was set in motion from 2007-2013, before "magical thinking" about Uber, Theranos, WeWork, etc was mainstream; and even without AI things would be at a head.
- rtpg 3y ago
  > at the same time the contracts weren't particularly well thought out I think they were plenty thought out: Netflix set more or less fixed residuals, which is quite different from “more popularity = more money” for other distribution models. People were mostly fine with it because most shows were not super popular. But if everything is on it suddenly there is no “high end”. And streamers pulling shows means your “low end” revenue disappears. No mountain to cover valleys, and valleys are getting deeper.
  - majormajor 3y ago
    Fair, that makes sense too, but that part of "now stuff will be black holed" is what I think wasn't particularly anticipated from either side. Especially from the streamer's side: now you've spent money on shows that aren't even gaining you "niche back catalog size" benefits.
nine_zeros 3y ago
Time for SV to go on strike too. Far too many companies have promised far too much to investors. Now that it's harder to get the same meteoric growth, they are resorting to squeezing workers, RTO mandates and general hand flailing at the expense of employees.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  At least SV compensates well. Sure you get laid off in 3 years but the gravy train was pretty good in the meantime. Hollywood, not so much if you're not an A list actor.
pcurve 3y ago
The amount of money plowed into creating new content that nobody watch is the hollywood equivalent of the Bridge to Nowhere project, except on the private investors' back. The volume of content that has been made in the past few decades is enough to keep the entire world occupied for probably the next couple decades. Human attention is a finite resource and it directly correates to and puts a ceiling on how much the money studios and creators can earn. We've long past the ceiling and the gravy train has been coming to a stop.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Attention is a finite resource but Hollywood has traditionally been very good at grabbing that.
satisfaction 3y ago
I stopped supporting Hollywood years ago.
jondwillis 3y ago
> We’ve heard a lot about the ways that studios want to reserve the right to use AI — to create endlessly usable digital replicas of actors, to generate scripts that writers will be paid lower rates to fix up. Does anyone know of ongoing attempts to achieve these kinds of products now? Seems like vaporware right now
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  Does it matter? The union wants it banned, so if there are no plans for it, the executives should have no problem agreeing to it.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  "Seems like vaporware right now" That's the kind of thinking that these unions fell for LAST time, when they agreed to contracts that treated streaming as some kind of "new, unproven" media... which it obviously wasn't even then. So the studios have been screwing these people for years, and now they're whining that they're being asked to pay up from here on out. This is like the banks bitching that Obama put a stop to a bunch of their shit after they screwed us for decades. And we're going to hear all that and more if Congress finally acts to rein in another scumbag industry: airlines.
- CameronNemo 3y ago
  The product could exist in the future, and the studios could give themselves permission to use their library to train AI models in the contracts. Even if they don't do it this year or the next, actors want assurances that their facial structure won't be ripped off. Separately, writers don't want to read the trash that contemporary LLMs spew, and readers/listeners/watchers don't want it either, even if a human edited it.
- GravelRocks 3y ago
  It for sure is something that people are trying to do. The weird Twitch AI Seinfeld jumps to mind. You can find a few different versions by just searching "script writing AI" or "Movie making AI" but I have no desire to sift through that trash pile. I think we're pretty far away from making something that is appealing outside of the novelty or "so bad it's good." On the other hand, I'm not sure if you couldn't just use AI to write/generate a lot of children's programming. It's already highly formulaic, parents only halfass pay attention to it, and kids are exactly highly decerning critics. Sure some kids might be very misguided and confused by the AI media babysitter, but is that really any different than what we already have?
ramraj07 3y ago
It is caused by tech and by tech quite exclusively by Netflix, for sure. But nothing recent or magical thinking is to blame here. In the past people were dumbly forced to pay hundreds of dollars for a cable package they never truly utilized fully. They bought CDs for 10-15 bucks a piece. They bought DVDs in Walmart for movies they never would have paid any money for otherwise except maybe because it’s now in the discount bin. One could argue that the per capita entertainment expenditure in the US might have been in the hundred+ dollar range in the nineties. But now due to Netflix and Spotify that’s not true. Even with all the subscription services it’s a small fraction once you divide family sharing. Thus we are making more movies and shows and music with less money for the total pie. Something’s gotta break. Realistically half the studios or folk making these things just have to stop making them. The industry cannot survive on the smaller pie with so many people eating chunks of it (I mean studios and tech companies not workers). It’ll be interesting to see how this actually ends up working out.
- deleted 3y ago
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- smegger001 3y ago
  there is only so much studios can do to grow their slice of the pie. They can't make much cheaper content reality TV is about as low cost as they can go and not be beaten completely by YouTube. They could make less total content but higher quality that was HBO's modus operandi. But AT&T didn't know how to run a media company and sold them to discovery which is run by a producer of the lowest quality reality TV. so now that's looked at by other producers as a bad strategy even though it more a case of bungled management. from their perspective the only way forward is to cut production cost but the unions probably strong enough to outlast them with new and current productions on hold
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
23B1 3y ago
Hollywood has just as awful economics, b.s. accounting, and snake-oil salesmen as Silicon Valley. < insert spiderman-pointing-meme here >
ocdtrekkie 3y ago
It's worth noting most of this article is spelled out by Adam Conover, the ex-CollegeHumor star of Adam Ruins Everything. Generally speaking, the man does his research.
- andrei_says_ 3y ago
  Highly recommend his YouTube interview with Jane McAlevey on how organizing for power works and the incessant efforts to defang unions. Eye opening. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nA2AMxRz0iA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nA2AMxRz0iA
- dehrmann 3y ago
  > These companies blew up a successful business model that the public enjoyed, that was immensely profitable, and they replaced it with a mishmash that we have now They were only "immensely profitable" because they were in an oligopoly with 4.5 players. Netflix disrupted that, and then it was a race to the bottom. Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. For the most part, it was just adequate.
  - erklik 3y ago
    > Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. For the most part, it was just adequate. Not adequate either. Throwing a hundred ads during one show, at the same time charging you for it and that's somehow a good experience? Netflix is a million times better and that's why they're still raking in money.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. They may not have profited as much as they would have from cable, but the number of viewers seems to speak for itself. I know they aren't the HN audience but surely we can see wider than that.
pie_flavor 3y ago
This seemed like a pretty tortured explanation of what's going on here, as though the punching bag was selected before the mechanism was figured out. Then I realized the guy they were citing was Adam Conover, who drafts explanations like that for a living. Mystery solved.
- joe__f 3y ago
  Haha I was watching some of him on YouTube yesterday and he has some quite interesting views and choices of topics but I was thinking the whole time, "something about his style is really grating"
scrubs 3y ago
Reportedly the 3-stooges were ripped off by the studios who also hid or obstructed or misrepresented how much their stuff made. But closer today ... I had a two year debate (80s/90s) on Japan conquering some 30% of the US market. The other guy argued state support and price dumping by the Japanese. I argued laziness on the part of American management who did not take quality and process control seriously. I also critiqued US auto labor unions for loosing their minds ie both of them ... since that time and since the decimation of unions since the 60s/70s today's corporate managers are virtually guaranteeing labor will return to strong unions ... stupid pay packages, bad fiscal control, and attempting to squeeze labor hard. ceos will create and legitimize them.
slowmovintarget 3y ago
I think the more compelling tale is that Hollywood execs are infected with Wall Street thinking. Maximum profit extraction, the kind of product is irrelevant, as are the customers.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Do you enjoy watching the hit TV shows and movies produced by the Soviet Union? Who is your favorite Soviet movie star?
  - slowmovintarget 3y ago
    I don't know what on earth you're talking about. I'm talking about how billionaires like Bob Iger are essentially trying to squeeze "labor" to extract more profits, which is what Wall Street did to the newspapers, to radio, to television, the music industry... We're getting ever crappier products in nearly every consumer category, because short term profits for shareholders are prioritized over the long term viability of the firm. Wall Street likes to shred firms for "value" and move on. I want healthy capitalism, not scorched earth financialism.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      > I don't know what on earth you're talking about. I'm talking about your statement: "Maximum profit extraction, the kind of product is irrelevant, as are the customers" The Soviet movies were not about profit at all. Why didn't they make better movies than Hollywood? > We're getting ever crappier products in nearly every consumer category, because short term profits for shareholders are prioritized over the long term viability of the firm. Which corporation has done this, and have you been shorting their stock? After all, if you know which companies are doing this, you can make a mint shorting their stock.
      - slowmovintarget 3y ago
        Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and any company that sells appliances made in China these days. I don't short stocks, requires way too much attention. > The Soviet movies were not about profit at all. Why didn't they make better movies than Hollywood? Because they were propaganda, which is a lot of what Hollywood has been producing. Since it's failing, the execs are moving to squeeze out writers and actors rather than make better product. You read an awful lot into me being against ruthlessness in business. I'm not in favor of communism; it's been dangerous and a colossal failure everywhere it's been implemented. I am saying that today's Hollywood execs don't understand story, don't understand viewers, and don't care to build that kind of understanding. They only think in terms of knobs they can turn to get more money pouring in: "X marketing dollars yields Y revenue... Hmm... why didn't that work. Looks like we need to lower wages." I'm kind of echoing what David Simon (creator of The Wire) is talking about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0c8rzOlUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0c8rzOlUA
throwaway14356 3y ago
The virtual people are coming, the generated scripts are coming, the generated worlds are coming, the glue code is coming. It can probably match the standard sausage. I doubt people will watch a lot of it but who knows. The market for hand made sausage will decline.
roody15 3y ago
Most the writing on TV today is just awful. I support living wages and fare compensation but the quality of programming and writing seems to be at an all time low. Dune was probably the last solid movie I have seen in years … and that’s because it mostly stayed true to a novel written decades ago.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  All time low - want to go back to 1980s TV? Or 1990s? 1970s? I don't remember those times as being just full of great shows either.
  - roody15 3y ago
    Good point.. I guess I am looking at just a decline in the last couple decades. You are right plenty of terrible writing in the 70’s, 80,s etc
gumby 3y ago
I normally consider headlines like this one to be lazy takes but this article, while a bit overwrought, highlights some important points.
coding123 3y ago
I don't know what the heck is going on... but is it something to do with Netflix making crappy shows and shows like Lost are lost forever?
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Lost is available free from the library: https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S82C509009 https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S82C509009
anshumankmr 3y ago
I foresee that Netflix etc are gonna become a hell of a lot more expensive.
jimmychoozyx 3y ago
[flagged]
- MrMan 3y ago
  [dead]

150 points by supertimor 3y ago

The economy goes from boom to bust, bust to boom, new technologies and ideas come, the novelty wears off and reality sets in (but the gems stick around!), so on and so forth. One thing that was unique this cycle was the extended period of near-zero interest rates in the rich world - this made the boom very big. I’m not sure it’s “Silicon Valley” thinking other than as a euphemism for subsidizing losses in hopes of future profits. But now interest rates are up, money is expensive, and justifying investment when 5% return is guaranteed means you need to promise significantly over 5% return. Junk bonds are one thing but highly speculative investments like VC are less attractive. It’s sad that Hollywood creatives are struggling but they were part of a bubble, just like tech and biotech. Will be a tough 2 to 7 years.

phpisthebest 3y ago
>>The economy goes from boom to bust, bust to boom, it does not have to. boom and bust is a direct result of fiat currency and manipulation of that currency by central banks
- contravariant 3y ago
  Currency is the lifeblood of the system known as a state, what exactly would you consider an alternative? Surely you're not suggesting a gold standard would solve the issue?
  - truSo 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - born2L8 3y ago
    [dead]
  - myownpetard 3y ago
    No, they are almost certainly suggesting crypto would solve the issue...
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      See… it’s a database… but no one owns it! And then…
    - contravariant 3y ago
      I mean that's just a gold standard with internet gold. Anyway I'd also like to express my sympathies to the moderators here, as I seem to have upset a whole botnet of them.
      - Turskarama 3y ago
        Crypto is the opposite of the gold standard. Instead of backing currency with a physical object with inherent value, it's backed by absolutely nothing and grows at a pace governed by people whose primary goal is to benefit off a pyramid scheme. Fiat currency gets a bad rap because it can be mismanaged, but a metal backed currency isn't compatible with rapid growth and we've yet to find a better alternative.
        Ekaros 3y ago
        And with gold. Dealing with actual physical gold is lot of work. And with any type of certificates be it paper or digital someone will immediately start playing games... And thus you can not trust them.
        contravariant 3y ago
        I'm not saying crypto is like a gold standard, I'm saying it behaves more as a commodity (like gold) than a currency. There's a couple of properties that make gold really useful as a form of money (rare but available, easily divisible, easy to transport) some of which are shared by crypto. The main difference is that gold also has some intrinsic value, but I reckon most of its value comes from its use a store of value. If not convincingly gold looking jewellery should have a similar price, and I don't think that's the case. Not sure if a metal backed currency is harder to mismanage. Lowering the metal content in coins or simply lowering the corresponding amount of metal have both happened. I'm pretty sure the US simply reneged on their promise to exchange promissory notes for gold at some point. Frankly I think that no matter the currency bankers are going to abstract it into something that they can work with eventually.
  - kgo6 3y ago
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  - hejrj 3y ago
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  - nfkfkfk 3y ago
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  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    >>Currency is the lifeblood of the system known as a state, Correct, which is the primary reason I oppose it. I consider the state to be part of the problem with human society >>what exactly would you consider an alternative? I dont proscribe a single "alternative" nor do I believe an single alternative should be mandated by a state, nor do I believe it is the proper role of a state to control the medium of exchange
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      So you're just blaming a Complex and ingrained societal concept without offering a better model(s)? It's fun to do it with small tech projects but world commerce probably needs a bit more thought considered before attacking it.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Fiat currency and the central banks were the direct result of the boom-bust cycle.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Fiat currency is the result of trying to finance WW1. The propaganda reason was to even out the boom-bust cycle, of course that promise was never fulfilled.
    - JetSpiegel 3y ago
      The US only left the Gold Standard in the Nixon administration.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  It's the management of the fiat currency that's part of the problem, not the fiat currency itself. Fundamentally it's human laziness and corruptablility, both actively and passively. But it's also basic human nature in reaction to stock market bubbles and the fomo of getting rich quick. There aren't enough rules and regulation around stock market trading, or at least they're not enforced well enough, to maintain some kind of rationality. ... and it still may not actually be possible. But there's little effort to reign it in because the powers that be tend to massively profit from the status quo.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > boom and bust is a direct result of fiat currency Because there was no boom and bust before fiat…
- connicpu 3y ago
  Ah yes, back in the days when money was based on the gold standard we never had recessions or depressions!
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    Yes, the currency was always entirely trustworthy... No one lied or played games... I wonder how many of modern day businesses would be ready to deal with real physical gold, silver or whatever. As any digital or paper based one can't really be trusted in long run.

prpl 3y ago

ha, it’s definitely techs fault, and absolutely not related to all the ways hollywood gets creative with accounting when it comes to paying residuals.

taeric 3y ago

I support the strikes and hope it comes to a good conclusion; but this feels a touch forced, honestly. I get that it is in vogue to blame silicon valley, but hollywood has a littered history of killing their goose, as it were. For fun, consider that if netflix had stuck to the DVD model, they could still be profitable. You don't need a special license to buy a dvd and rent it out to anyone. Just as you don't need a special license to loan or sell a dvd to a friend. You bought it and you can do that. Now, if studios had their way, they would kill this. Hard. Indeed, they can refuse to sell dvds to companies that they think will then sell to anyone that is renting out in this way. They have tried that with redbox, from my quick google. That is all to say, no, SV is not the root of the problem here. Atrocious licensing deals and ridiculously baroque rules around streaming/broadcast are far harder to comprehend than anything out of SV. Largely from the influence of hollywood...

lacrimacida 3y ago
Let me put it in perspective for you: Hollywood the actors and writers are on strike because Hollywood, the money making machinery decided to replace them with a product from SV. I don’t care for Hollywood and indeed it has gotten quite garbage anyway but I do support the actors and writers striking because they can. For the rest of us it remains to be seen how we’re going to handle it or whether we boil slowly.. In a way they may determine our fate as well. Imagine one scenario where the strike flops, AI is implemented as replacement and all goes well. In this scenario we’re more or less going to follow the same. I let other scenarios play out however your imagination desires
- deleted 3y ago
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- darepublic 3y ago
  The non unionized would have no recourse regardless. Except going outside the current game
  - mschuster91 3y ago

tekla 3y ago

I continue to wonder how much studios are ACTUALLY hurt by this strike. The studios have reserves of money, they still get money from streaming existing content. And short term they can still release content that are in post-prod enough to release. On the other hand, the public supports of the strike amounts to ... wanting new TV shows and movies. It's annoying for many I'm sure, but its not exactly something that keeps you alive.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
The studios burned through lots of money for the streaming boom, and the investors want returns from their burned money right about now. At the other end, streaming services are stuffed with content. I have no proof, but I suspect viewers will learn than the back catalog is pretty good.
- DriverDaily 3y ago
  They’re stuffed with content, but much of the content is of poor quality. The good stuff everyone has seen, and you can attract new viewers with a new show that is good.
  - zabzonk 3y ago
    but the new shows, written by those striking writers, aren't good - rings of power, she-hulk etc. etc.
    - DriverDaily 3y ago
      Yes, and that’s because they’re focused on quantity over quality. And if that’s your strategy, you can do it with AI.
  - woobar 3y ago
    They have 30-40 years worth of content. I agree, majority is bad. But there is still plenty of stuff to watch. Plus, rewatching some old great show often is more rewarding than consuming all this new drek.

brucethemoose2 3y ago

Yeah. I drink genAI koolaid. I run llama and other transformers models daily. ...But what some CEOs are saying and doing is just loony.

AlbertCory 3y ago

That's right, LA Times! No one in the whole history of the world ever succumbed to Irrational Exuberance before. It was Big Tech that brought that plague down on us. Of course, it was 1996 when Alan Greenspan coined the phrase, before Google & Amazon were big, so we have to cover up that fact.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

"The boom times are over. Executives know it. Wall Street knows it. And the story that we're in a revolutionary moment of technological transformation will run out of gas soon." "Wildly profitable tech companies are citing an as-yet notional recession to make deep workforce cuts. They may have another agenda."

bagacrap 3y ago
I wouldn't have ever detected this supposed recession if I hadn't been constantly warned of it by the media
- Turskarama 3y ago
  There's a two speed economy. If you're in the low speed part earning less than the median then you're already in recession. If you're in the high speed part you will be in recession when you stop being able to extract money from the low speed economy.
  - bagacrap 3y ago
    As seductive as that story is, the data doesn't bear it out. Hourly workers have made huge gains in the last three years at the expense of salaried workers, and flyover states are turning the tables on coastal states. Look at: real hourly wages and unemployment figures.
    - Turskarama 3y ago
      I have some fairly big gripes with the way inflation adjustion is calculated. Mainly: I don't think it properly covers the difference between discretionary vs non discretionary spending across different income levels. Ultimately, if you're poor, the only weightings that _actually_ affect you are (in order) food, housing, transportation, and energy. Everything else including healthcare ultimately doesn't become part of the equation, because you can't afford it. It doesn't matter if cars are cheaper if you can't afford to buy one anyway, it doesn't matter if drugs are cheaper if you can't afford your prescription anyway, and it doesn't matter if restaurants are cheaper if you can't afford to eat out anyway. Pretending like the price of consumer electronics (which can be a big one off spend, but amortised over the several years they last are fairly small) or plane trips matters at all to the spending power of poor people is laughable.

majormajor 3y ago

The interplay between SV in the form of Netflix and Hollywood in the last 15 years of streaming wars is interesting but the author loses the plot a bit in trying to connect to Uber, WeWork, etc. By the time those companies were making waves the Hollywood trends were already in motion. Netflix made waves for sure with original content, but if you look at in another light, it was just an extension of what HBO and other cable networks had already started doing. And Hollywood initially was much more concerned with Youtube and piracy than Netflix, see the introduction of Hulu as a free ad-supported broadcast-network-based "TV from last night" alternative to piracy. Hulu borrowed the back catalog model from Netflix as streaming grew, and then eventually started doing its own originals too, which was then also copied by everyone else, including Youtube, ironically enough. And this was a boon for writers and actors and studious, but at the same time the contracts weren't particularly well thought out (see how some stuff has now been pulled from streaming altogether because the views weren't seen as enough to support paying whatever was needed to make it available at all per contract) or actor/writer friendly in terms of residuals. So it's a tough time on the backend now since hardly anyone who tried to throw money at content and hope profit followed succeeded (hi Quibi), and the market was oversaturated, PLUS the deals got increasingly talent-unfriendly since the syndication residuals and similar dried up. And now there's the specter of AI too! But all that was set in motion from 2007-2013, before "magical thinking" about Uber, Theranos, WeWork, etc was mainstream; and even without AI things would be at a head.

rtpg 3y ago
> at the same time the contracts weren't particularly well thought out I think they were plenty thought out: Netflix set more or less fixed residuals, which is quite different from “more popularity = more money” for other distribution models. People were mostly fine with it because most shows were not super popular. But if everything is on it suddenly there is no “high end”. And streamers pulling shows means your “low end” revenue disappears. No mountain to cover valleys, and valleys are getting deeper.
- majormajor 3y ago
  Fair, that makes sense too, but that part of "now stuff will be black holed" is what I think wasn't particularly anticipated from either side. Especially from the streamer's side: now you've spent money on shows that aren't even gaining you "niche back catalog size" benefits.

nine_zeros 3y ago

Time for SV to go on strike too. Far too many companies have promised far too much to investors. Now that it's harder to get the same meteoric growth, they are resorting to squeezing workers, RTO mandates and general hand flailing at the expense of employees.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
At least SV compensates well. Sure you get laid off in 3 years but the gravy train was pretty good in the meantime. Hollywood, not so much if you're not an A list actor.

pcurve 3y ago

The amount of money plowed into creating new content that nobody watch is the hollywood equivalent of the Bridge to Nowhere project, except on the private investors' back. The volume of content that has been made in the past few decades is enough to keep the entire world occupied for probably the next couple decades. Human attention is a finite resource and it directly correates to and puts a ceiling on how much the money studios and creators can earn. We've long past the ceiling and the gravy train has been coming to a stop.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
Attention is a finite resource but Hollywood has traditionally been very good at grabbing that.

satisfaction 3y ago

I stopped supporting Hollywood years ago.

jondwillis 3y ago

> We’ve heard a lot about the ways that studios want to reserve the right to use AI — to create endlessly usable digital replicas of actors, to generate scripts that writers will be paid lower rates to fix up. Does anyone know of ongoing attempts to achieve these kinds of products now? Seems like vaporware right now

ZoomerCretin 3y ago
Does it matter? The union wants it banned, so if there are no plans for it, the executives should have no problem agreeing to it.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
"Seems like vaporware right now" That's the kind of thinking that these unions fell for LAST time, when they agreed to contracts that treated streaming as some kind of "new, unproven" media... which it obviously wasn't even then. So the studios have been screwing these people for years, and now they're whining that they're being asked to pay up from here on out. This is like the banks bitching that Obama put a stop to a bunch of their shit after they screwed us for decades. And we're going to hear all that and more if Congress finally acts to rein in another scumbag industry: airlines.
CameronNemo 3y ago
The product could exist in the future, and the studios could give themselves permission to use their library to train AI models in the contracts. Even if they don't do it this year or the next, actors want assurances that their facial structure won't be ripped off. Separately, writers don't want to read the trash that contemporary LLMs spew, and readers/listeners/watchers don't want it either, even if a human edited it.
GravelRocks 3y ago
It for sure is something that people are trying to do. The weird Twitch AI Seinfeld jumps to mind. You can find a few different versions by just searching "script writing AI" or "Movie making AI" but I have no desire to sift through that trash pile. I think we're pretty far away from making something that is appealing outside of the novelty or "so bad it's good." On the other hand, I'm not sure if you couldn't just use AI to write/generate a lot of children's programming. It's already highly formulaic, parents only halfass pay attention to it, and kids are exactly highly decerning critics. Sure some kids might be very misguided and confused by the AI media babysitter, but is that really any different than what we already have?

ramraj07 3y ago

It is caused by tech and by tech quite exclusively by Netflix, for sure. But nothing recent or magical thinking is to blame here. In the past people were dumbly forced to pay hundreds of dollars for a cable package they never truly utilized fully. They bought CDs for 10-15 bucks a piece. They bought DVDs in Walmart for movies they never would have paid any money for otherwise except maybe because it’s now in the discount bin. One could argue that the per capita entertainment expenditure in the US might have been in the hundred+ dollar range in the nineties. But now due to Netflix and Spotify that’s not true. Even with all the subscription services it’s a small fraction once you divide family sharing. Thus we are making more movies and shows and music with less money for the total pie. Something’s gotta break. Realistically half the studios or folk making these things just have to stop making them. The industry cannot survive on the smaller pie with so many people eating chunks of it (I mean studios and tech companies not workers). It’ll be interesting to see how this actually ends up working out.

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smegger001 3y ago
there is only so much studios can do to grow their slice of the pie. They can't make much cheaper content reality TV is about as low cost as they can go and not be beaten completely by YouTube. They could make less total content but higher quality that was HBO's modus operandi. But AT&T didn't know how to run a media company and sold them to discovery which is run by a producer of the lowest quality reality TV. so now that's looked at by other producers as a bad strategy even though it more a case of bungled management. from their perspective the only way forward is to cut production cost but the unions probably strong enough to outlast them with new and current productions on hold

aaron695 3y ago

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23B1 3y ago

Hollywood has just as awful economics, b.s. accounting, and snake-oil salesmen as Silicon Valley. < insert spiderman-pointing-meme here >

ocdtrekkie 3y ago

It's worth noting most of this article is spelled out by Adam Conover, the ex-CollegeHumor star of Adam Ruins Everything. Generally speaking, the man does his research.

andrei_says_ 3y ago
Highly recommend his YouTube interview with Jane McAlevey on how organizing for power works and the incessant efforts to defang unions. Eye opening. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nA2AMxRz0iA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nA2AMxRz0iA
dehrmann 3y ago
> These companies blew up a successful business model that the public enjoyed, that was immensely profitable, and they replaced it with a mishmash that we have now They were only "immensely profitable" because they were in an oligopoly with 4.5 players. Netflix disrupted that, and then it was a race to the bottom. Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. For the most part, it was just adequate.
- erklik 3y ago
  > Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. For the most part, it was just adequate. Not adequate either. Throwing a hundred ads during one show, at the same time charging you for it and that's somehow a good experience? Netflix is a million times better and that's why they're still raking in money.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >Saying the "public enjoyed" network TV is a bit of a stretch, too. They may not have profited as much as they would have from cable, but the number of viewers seems to speak for itself. I know they aren't the HN audience but surely we can see wider than that.

pie_flavor 3y ago

This seemed like a pretty tortured explanation of what's going on here, as though the punching bag was selected before the mechanism was figured out. Then I realized the guy they were citing was Adam Conover, who drafts explanations like that for a living. Mystery solved.

joe__f 3y ago
Haha I was watching some of him on YouTube yesterday and he has some quite interesting views and choices of topics but I was thinking the whole time, "something about his style is really grating"

scrubs 3y ago

Reportedly the 3-stooges were ripped off by the studios who also hid or obstructed or misrepresented how much their stuff made. But closer today ... I had a two year debate (80s/90s) on Japan conquering some 30% of the US market. The other guy argued state support and price dumping by the Japanese. I argued laziness on the part of American management who did not take quality and process control seriously. I also critiqued US auto labor unions for loosing their minds ie both of them ... since that time and since the decimation of unions since the 60s/70s today's corporate managers are virtually guaranteeing labor will return to strong unions ... stupid pay packages, bad fiscal control, and attempting to squeeze labor hard. ceos will create and legitimize them.

slowmovintarget 3y ago

I think the more compelling tale is that Hollywood execs are infected with Wall Street thinking. Maximum profit extraction, the kind of product is irrelevant, as are the customers.

WalterBright 3y ago
Do you enjoy watching the hit TV shows and movies produced by the Soviet Union? Who is your favorite Soviet movie star?
- slowmovintarget 3y ago
  I don't know what on earth you're talking about. I'm talking about how billionaires like Bob Iger are essentially trying to squeeze "labor" to extract more profits, which is what Wall Street did to the newspapers, to radio, to television, the music industry... We're getting ever crappier products in nearly every consumer category, because short term profits for shareholders are prioritized over the long term viability of the firm. Wall Street likes to shred firms for "value" and move on. I want healthy capitalism, not scorched earth financialism.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    > I don't know what on earth you're talking about. I'm talking about your statement: "Maximum profit extraction, the kind of product is irrelevant, as are the customers" The Soviet movies were not about profit at all. Why didn't they make better movies than Hollywood? > We're getting ever crappier products in nearly every consumer category, because short term profits for shareholders are prioritized over the long term viability of the firm. Which corporation has done this, and have you been shorting their stock? After all, if you know which companies are doing this, you can make a mint shorting their stock.
    - slowmovintarget 3y ago
      Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and any company that sells appliances made in China these days. I don't short stocks, requires way too much attention. > The Soviet movies were not about profit at all. Why didn't they make better movies than Hollywood? Because they were propaganda, which is a lot of what Hollywood has been producing. Since it's failing, the execs are moving to squeeze out writers and actors rather than make better product. You read an awful lot into me being against ruthlessness in business. I'm not in favor of communism; it's been dangerous and a colossal failure everywhere it's been implemented. I am saying that today's Hollywood execs don't understand story, don't understand viewers, and don't care to build that kind of understanding. They only think in terms of knobs they can turn to get more money pouring in: "X marketing dollars yields Y revenue... Hmm... why didn't that work. Looks like we need to lower wages." I'm kind of echoing what David Simon (creator of The Wire) is talking about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0c8rzOlUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0c8rzOlUA

throwaway14356 3y ago

The virtual people are coming, the generated scripts are coming, the generated worlds are coming, the glue code is coming. It can probably match the standard sausage. I doubt people will watch a lot of it but who knows. The market for hand made sausage will decline.

roody15 3y ago

Most the writing on TV today is just awful. I support living wages and fare compensation but the quality of programming and writing seems to be at an all time low. Dune was probably the last solid movie I have seen in years … and that’s because it mostly stayed true to a novel written decades ago.

RandomLensman 3y ago
All time low - want to go back to 1980s TV? Or 1990s? 1970s? I don't remember those times as being just full of great shows either.
- roody15 3y ago
  Good point.. I guess I am looking at just a decline in the last couple decades. You are right plenty of terrible writing in the 70’s, 80,s etc

gumby 3y ago

I normally consider headlines like this one to be lazy takes but this article, while a bit overwrought, highlights some important points.

coding123 3y ago

I don't know what the heck is going on... but is it something to do with Netflix making crappy shows and shows like Lost are lost forever?

WalterBright 3y ago
Lost is available free from the library: https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S82C509009 https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S82C509009

anshumankmr 3y ago

I foresee that Netflix etc are gonna become a hell of a lot more expensive.

jimmychoozyx 3y ago

[flagged]

MrMan 3y ago
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