5 ms·

I like the sports team concept in terms of being a sieve for performance. Similar to HS->College->NFL athletes, elite military SOF groups, etc. You get binned

by kirse 3y ago

I like the sports team concept in terms of being a sieve for performance. Similar to HS->College->NFL athletes, elite military SOF groups, etc. You get binned and sometimes that's hard to accept, but that's the point of the filter. It's interesting that despite the high-performance culture though, Netflix is still slowly degrading. This past year I finally realized I could cancel Netflix and not feel like I lost anything, and I was an early subscriber to the DVD plan. Any thoughts on Netflix's degradation over time? My take is that its transitioned from peak phase into cash-cow mode once everyone wanted a piece of the streaming pie.

the_af 3y ago
> Any thoughts on Netflix's degradation over time? I still have plenty of use for Netflix, but here are my thoughts: From a creativity/artistic perspective: creativity is one of the things where simply throwing more money at it and/or "optimizing" it is not the solution. I mean, it can be the solution from a purely business perspective, but I'm assuming this isn't satisfying to you (or me), hence the "degradation" you speak of. Creativity, as in "good quality things you can enjoy but are not necessarily mass-produced for everyone to like" is not a "problem" to be "optimized" by whatever algorithms Netflix is using. From a business perspective I've no idea how they are doing. Given their crackdown on account sharing, I'd say things are not as rosy as they used to be. Also, quite obviously, the competition became harder; Netflix is no longer the only player in town.
sshine 3y ago
> Any thoughts on Netflix's degradation over time? Netflix both got better and worse at the same time. With wider audiences and more content, there is both more content for you in absolute terms, and less in proportion to the total amount. So while there's more stuff you will like to see, it gets drowned out. https://thecorrespondent.com/104/the-great-paradox-of-our-time-everything-is-both-better-and-worse-than-ever-before https://thecorrespondent.com/104/the-great-paradox-of-our-ti...
majormajor 3y ago
Netflix was unlikely to ever be able to forever remain an aggregator of content from other distribution shops. They would've gotten squeezed to death from all sides. So now they have tons of content and tons of viewership (and tons of profits the last several years) but they've changed from being "the biggest streaming hub for all your favorites" to "one of many producers and distributors." They might on the whole have more good stuff you'd like - but they have a lot less mindshare for that stuff than when it was stuff that had already done theater and TV rounds. (What's really interesting to me is that the music industry evolved differently, with almost no exclusives, so you have many competing streaming services (but all that seem to be VERY squeezed profit-wise) all with the same content. My best guess is it's because people want to be able to flow music together in custom playlists, spanning a bunch of artists, vs binging a single series or such?)
- shafoshaf 3y ago
  THe low cost of a single song vs. an entire episode I suspect also plays a factor. A lot of artists are one or two song wonders, so once you take out a Taylor Swift, there's no incentive for artists to limit their songs to a single platform, no platform will pay enough for the exclusivity to make the artist think it is worth it.
- jedberg 3y ago
  The music industry set up a way for anyone who wanted their content to get it without their permission, as long as they paid for it, and they did that back in the 50s when radio was their main method of distribution. It was too hard to make deals with every radio station, especially since they were mostly independent. So the music streamers were able to leverage that and extend the deal. If movies had a similar licensing model, you'd see a ton of "Netflix"'s who were all licensing the same content and competing on user experience. Like the music streamers. Although it should be noted that the music streamers are now moving towards the exclusivity model, where the big ones are making exclusive deals to keep that music off of any other platform.
jedberg 3y ago
It depends on what metrics you are basing the degradation. Financially they are doing very well. After they cracked down on account sharing, they gained six million new subs, so they seem to be doing well on product as well. They don't seem to have as much breakout content as before, but I think they have a lot of minor hits, especially in other countries. And honestly that is better for their business than huge breakout hits. From what I've heard from friends who are still there, the nexus of the company shifted from the Bay Area to Hollywood a few years ago. At that point they became more of an entertainment company than a tech company. Some have said all the "hard" problems are solved, now they are just making small adjustments. Although I disagree with this: they quietly added live streaming which was a huge tech leap for Netflix, although it was so quiet no one seems to have noticed. Also, with the economy the way it is and being an entertainment company now, they are starting to worry more about budgets. When I was there the only real budget guidance we got was "don't grow your headcount faster than our subscriber count" and "keep IT costs flat on a per stream basis". I hear now directors get budgets they have to stick to. Also they added leveling which allowed them to hire more junior engineers. When I was there, there were no levels. We didn't really hire junior engineers. We hired senior engineers to solve problems that usually juniors would be given, and they would solve it with automation and robustness that maybe took a bit longer and would be considered "over-engineered" but that lasted for years and scaled with minimal effort. But the freedom is still there for the most part. Managers still mostly just provide context and the leaf nodes come up with the implementations.

by kirse 3y ago

the_af 3y ago

> Any thoughts on Netflix's degradation over time? I still have plenty of use for Netflix, but here are my thoughts: From a creativity/artistic perspective: creativity is one of the things where simply throwing more money at it and/or "optimizing" it is not the solution. I mean, it can be the solution from a purely business perspective, but I'm assuming this isn't satisfying to you (or me), hence the "degradation" you speak of. Creativity, as in "good quality things you can enjoy but are not necessarily mass-produced for everyone to like" is not a "problem" to be "optimized" by whatever algorithms Netflix is using. From a business perspective I've no idea how they are doing. Given their crackdown on account sharing, I'd say things are not as rosy as they used to be. Also, quite obviously, the competition became harder; Netflix is no longer the only player in town.

sshine 3y ago

> Any thoughts on Netflix's degradation over time? Netflix both got better and worse at the same time. With wider audiences and more content, there is both more content for you in absolute terms, and less in proportion to the total amount. So while there's more stuff you will like to see, it gets drowned out. https://thecorrespondent.com/104/the-great-paradox-of-our-time-everything-is-both-better-and-worse-than-ever-before https://thecorrespondent.com/104/the-great-paradox-of-our-ti...

majormajor 3y ago

Netflix was unlikely to ever be able to forever remain an aggregator of content from other distribution shops. They would've gotten squeezed to death from all sides. So now they have tons of content and tons of viewership (and tons of profits the last several years) but they've changed from being "the biggest streaming hub for all your favorites" to "one of many producers and distributors." They might on the whole have more good stuff you'd like - but they have a lot less mindshare for that stuff than when it was stuff that had already done theater and TV rounds. (What's really interesting to me is that the music industry evolved differently, with almost no exclusives, so you have many competing streaming services (but all that seem to be VERY squeezed profit-wise) all with the same content. My best guess is it's because people want to be able to flow music together in custom playlists, spanning a bunch of artists, vs binging a single series or such?)

shafoshaf 3y ago
THe low cost of a single song vs. an entire episode I suspect also plays a factor. A lot of artists are one or two song wonders, so once you take out a Taylor Swift, there's no incentive for artists to limit their songs to a single platform, no platform will pay enough for the exclusivity to make the artist think it is worth it.
jedberg 3y ago
The music industry set up a way for anyone who wanted their content to get it without their permission, as long as they paid for it, and they did that back in the 50s when radio was their main method of distribution. It was too hard to make deals with every radio station, especially since they were mostly independent. So the music streamers were able to leverage that and extend the deal. If movies had a similar licensing model, you'd see a ton of "Netflix"'s who were all licensing the same content and competing on user experience. Like the music streamers. Although it should be noted that the music streamers are now moving towards the exclusivity model, where the big ones are making exclusive deals to keep that music off of any other platform.

jedberg 3y ago

It depends on what metrics you are basing the degradation. Financially they are doing very well. After they cracked down on account sharing, they gained six million new subs, so they seem to be doing well on product as well. They don't seem to have as much breakout content as before, but I think they have a lot of minor hits, especially in other countries. And honestly that is better for their business than huge breakout hits. From what I've heard from friends who are still there, the nexus of the company shifted from the Bay Area to Hollywood a few years ago. At that point they became more of an entertainment company than a tech company. Some have said all the "hard" problems are solved, now they are just making small adjustments. Although I disagree with this: they quietly added live streaming which was a huge tech leap for Netflix, although it was so quiet no one seems to have noticed. Also, with the economy the way it is and being an entertainment company now, they are starting to worry more about budgets. When I was there the only real budget guidance we got was "don't grow your headcount faster than our subscriber count" and "keep IT costs flat on a per stream basis". I hear now directors get budgets they have to stick to. Also they added leveling which allowed them to hire more junior engineers. When I was there, there were no levels. We didn't really hire junior engineers. We hired senior engineers to solve problems that usually juniors would be given, and they would solve it with automation and robustness that maybe took a bit longer and would be considered "over-engineered" but that lasted for years and scaled with minimal effort. But the freedom is still there for the most part. Managers still mostly just provide context and the leaf nodes come up with the implementations.