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As all these competitors launched, I thought maybe NFLX's days were numbered. Basically NFLX was first mover, but now you have a mix of niche targeting streamer

As all these competitors launched, I thought maybe NFLX's days were numbered. Basically NFLX was first mover, but now you have a mix of niche targeting streamers in play. If you have kids or want Star Wars you get Disney+, if you care about sports/live then you pick one of the competitors with that, if you want more highbrow you get HBO/Max, if you want Star Trek you get Paramount+. Now watching them all burn cash and now scramble to consolidate, maybe I think NFLX was right all along. They have a deep catalog of licensed content from other studios. They churn out absolutely endless amounts of mid content with no name actors at low cost. They have the highest subscriber base with which to attract advertisers to the ad supported tier. They have tons of people on the paid tiers. Most of the high budget flop boondoggles you keep reading about in streaming shows have been newer players. NFLX was and continues to be the only ones making money. Think of it as reversion-to-mid wars. NFLX churns out lots of decent forgettable mid but watchable 8 episode series, occasionally renews them for 2-3 seasons. The big brand studio streamers are instead taking expensive IP and high paid actors to ... churn out sequels/spioffs/prequels which turn out to just be high budget mid content. NFLX is very smart here.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
Disney really fucked up here. As Netflix has figured out the number one quality a streaming service needs is endless content so that no one opens the app without at least scrolling for a while. Every single person has some sort of guilty pleasure show that can be produced cheaply, and Netflix figured out they can make everyone’s guilty pleasure show by just green lighting everything they come across
- steveBK123 3y ago
  My wife watches more than me and I occasionally join. It's all genuinely decent stuff compared to awful NBC/ABC/CBS 12 season x 20 episode x ~20min weekly churned out dreck. But it is also completely mid / forgettable in a totally different way. A lot of the content is longer than a movie but shorter than a series. You get 5-10 episodes of ~40min length, enjoy it, and never ever think about it again. Rinse & repeat. A lot of the actors I jokingly refer to as "poor mans __" because they often cast people that sort of look like someone famous. They have a nack for casting decent early career actors/actresses. Sort of a corporatized studio that realized they didn't need prestige names. Maybe, darkly, they've also identified the fact that a lot of people "give it a shot" in acting and then move on, and they can be had a lot more cheaply than someone with a decade of film&TV under their belt. If you live in LA/NYC you've probably got a few of these types in your friends circle.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    > They have a nack for casting decent early career actors/actresses. That's what Marvel used to do (dozens of A+ list actors in Hollywood were no-name when Marvel drafted them, think about Chris Pratt), but they lost the plot and started pulling in big actors.
    - recursivecaveat 3y ago
      Ultimately casting is an ineffable creative skill. Execs find it increasingly harder to trust in the simple skill of artists as the piles of money get bigger. Hence they invest more and more money into 'safe' and more measurable areas like name-recognition, special effects, and marketing. Eventually it ends in disaster though, hundreds of millions of dollars can only go so far to save bad story-telling, and the effort to create a 'guaranteed' blockbuster is revealed as simply putting all your eggs in one basket. There's an excellent memo by Jeffrey Katzenberg about the phenomenon in disney: https://sriramk.com/memos/katzenberg.pdf https://sriramk.com/memos/katzenberg.pdf I think the effect extends beyond artistic domains as well: how many times have we seen large organizations get burned by 'safely' spending billions of dollars on contractors and getting bad software anyway when they might have simply done their best to hire smart people and then pray for a fraction of the cost.
      - HDThoreaun 3y ago
        Thanks for the link.
- fullshark 3y ago
  Netflix basically created a better cable TV, endless trash but there's those few shows you enjoy watching or classic sitcoms as comfort food you like to put on and shut your brain off for. The content isn't king, at least not like the media conglomerates believe.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Even if content IS king, the conglomerates have risk-aversely optimized on churning out bad but expensive content. The proliferation of sequel/prequel/spinoff/reboot/riff content on top of marquee brands has been overkill. It's like the late 90s move to "reality TV" except without the cost controls.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

Disney really fucked up here. As Netflix has figured out the number one quality a streaming service needs is endless content so that no one opens the app without at least scrolling for a while. Every single person has some sort of guilty pleasure show that can be produced cheaply, and Netflix figured out they can make everyone’s guilty pleasure show by just green lighting everything they come across

steveBK123 3y ago
My wife watches more than me and I occasionally join. It's all genuinely decent stuff compared to awful NBC/ABC/CBS 12 season x 20 episode x ~20min weekly churned out dreck. But it is also completely mid / forgettable in a totally different way. A lot of the content is longer than a movie but shorter than a series. You get 5-10 episodes of ~40min length, enjoy it, and never ever think about it again. Rinse & repeat. A lot of the actors I jokingly refer to as "poor mans __" because they often cast people that sort of look like someone famous. They have a nack for casting decent early career actors/actresses. Sort of a corporatized studio that realized they didn't need prestige names. Maybe, darkly, they've also identified the fact that a lot of people "give it a shot" in acting and then move on, and they can be had a lot more cheaply than someone with a decade of film&TV under their belt. If you live in LA/NYC you've probably got a few of these types in your friends circle.
- justrealist 3y ago
  > They have a nack for casting decent early career actors/actresses. That's what Marvel used to do (dozens of A+ list actors in Hollywood were no-name when Marvel drafted them, think about Chris Pratt), but they lost the plot and started pulling in big actors.
  - recursivecaveat 3y ago
    Ultimately casting is an ineffable creative skill. Execs find it increasingly harder to trust in the simple skill of artists as the piles of money get bigger. Hence they invest more and more money into 'safe' and more measurable areas like name-recognition, special effects, and marketing. Eventually it ends in disaster though, hundreds of millions of dollars can only go so far to save bad story-telling, and the effort to create a 'guaranteed' blockbuster is revealed as simply putting all your eggs in one basket. There's an excellent memo by Jeffrey Katzenberg about the phenomenon in disney: https://sriramk.com/memos/katzenberg.pdf https://sriramk.com/memos/katzenberg.pdf I think the effect extends beyond artistic domains as well: how many times have we seen large organizations get burned by 'safely' spending billions of dollars on contractors and getting bad software anyway when they might have simply done their best to hire smart people and then pray for a fraction of the cost.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      Thanks for the link.
fullshark 3y ago
Netflix basically created a better cable TV, endless trash but there's those few shows you enjoy watching or classic sitcoms as comfort food you like to put on and shut your brain off for. The content isn't king, at least not like the media conglomerates believe.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Even if content IS king, the conglomerates have risk-aversely optimized on churning out bad but expensive content. The proliferation of sequel/prequel/spinoff/reboot/riff content on top of marquee brands has been overkill. It's like the late 90s move to "reality TV" except without the cost controls.