4 ms·

> terrible shows being greenlit, homogeneity of camerawork, casting, identity-politics pandering that nobody asked for, oversaturation of the market with stream

by _gabe_ 3y ago

> terrible shows being greenlit, homogeneity of camerawork, casting, identity-politics pandering that nobody asked for, oversaturation of the market with streaming services that is almost as bad as cable etc. … Binge-tv model is also not a good thing None of this is unique to Netflix. Terrible shows have been greenlit since the dawn of television. Shows are incredibly homogenous because they’re largely produced by a select few people. If anything, Netflix has broken that homogeneity by allowing more indie film/tv creators to breakthrough (like squid game). Casting and identity politics shenanigans are definitely not unique to Netflix and started way before Netflix started producing content. The oversaturation problem only became a problem when all the other networks wanted their own slice of the pie. It was actually great for awhile when Netflix was the only big player in town. And finally, binge-tv has always been possible. My grandmother would sit in front of cable television sun-up to sun-down watching whatever was on. 24 hour marathons of mythbusters and other shows like that were very common. Reruns of all your favorite sitcoms play all night on all major cable channels. Bingeing isn’t a unique problem to Netflix. Netflix just allows you to do it with new shows instead of waiting arbitrary amounts of time. Also, is binge-reading a novel unhealthy? I’ve had 8 hour reading sessions when I’m gripped by a great book, like the last book in the Wheel of Time series. If that’s acceptable, why isn’t watching a show for 8 hours acceptable? I don’t think the medium really has that much of a tangible effect. Now if you’re bingeing shows everyday, then it’s unhealthy. But once a quarter when a new show you like comes out? Idk, that seems fine to me.

rain_iwakura 3y ago
I'm not sure if you're joking about binge-ing but you have to be delusional to think that someone taping their favorite show on their own or waiting for it until it ends is nearly the same as dropping all episodes at the same time on principle for every show and only offering that as an option for a long time. building your whole UI around it and encouraging this behavior? The point about others jumping on the bandwagon can only happen if Netflix broke down the barrier and over-invested (by going into deep red) to justify accessibility, knowing full well they won't be able to keep up the steam indefinitely. I know you're trying to be smart here, and failing, but are books built to be binged? Do they know when your attention is dipping? Do books have such UI to do this? You can make same inane argument about doing math for 8 hours a day or something. Also the scale at which Netflix was throwing money around was unprecedented, so much so that other tv shows and writers were making fun of it. That's like saying periods of good investment client are equivalent to a dot com crash or a housing bubble.
- sfn42 3y ago
  Man i really hate how people absolve themselves of responsibility like this. "It's not my fault I spent all weekend watching Netflix, it's their UI!" No, it isn't. I love when they release full seasons at a time. I can watch them at whatever pace I please. If some degenerate can't control themselves that's their problem. "But muh children" parent them. "But irresponsible parents" Netflix is probably the best case scenario there.
  - techno_tsar 3y ago
    I don’t interpret this discussion as about absolving oneself of responsibility. To be fair, what people spend their weekends doing is none of my business. But it is true that Netflix makes UI decisions that encourage binging. They are not evil for doing so, because honestly, there isn’t anything wrong with binging anyway, but it’s indicative of the logic that is going to be used when it comes to producing their own shows.
    - sfn42 3y ago
      You could say they encourage binging, you could say they have good UX. I don't really know what type of functionality were talking about here, I'm thinking things like automatically playing the next episode, skipping intros etc. To me that's just good design, it's exactly what I want the app to do. And I don't really see how Netflix benefits from binging. It seems to me that Netflix is more like gyms - they want customers who pay but don't use the service. The more you watch the more you're costing Netflix. If you pay but never watch anything you're the perfect customer, they're collecting free money. If you just watch a full show in a weekend and unsubscribe that's really not ideal for them.
    - StreetChief 3y ago
      What if they are spending their weekends building devices to kill you? Does it now become your business?
  - rain_iwakura 3y ago
    No one is saying you don't have agency as an individual. This is an aggregate statement. In any A/B test you're interested in proportion of people converted who displayed increase in desired behavior. What you can't do is to go on an extrapolate this to any individual person, because that's now how statistics work or are designed. You're taking an rightwing/libertarian approach (no judgement) where everyone has complete free will to do anything they want and make fully informed decisions. Rational actor and all that. Reality is quite different, and if you don't believe me you can peruse a ton of work in behavioral economics that show it. Hell, I don't even need to go far to conjure an example: gambling addicts.

by _gabe_ 3y ago

rain_iwakura 3y ago

I'm not sure if you're joking about binge-ing but you have to be delusional to think that someone taping their favorite show on their own or waiting for it until it ends is nearly the same as dropping all episodes at the same time on principle for every show and only offering that as an option for a long time. building your whole UI around it and encouraging this behavior? The point about others jumping on the bandwagon can only happen if Netflix broke down the barrier and over-invested (by going into deep red) to justify accessibility, knowing full well they won't be able to keep up the steam indefinitely. I know you're trying to be smart here, and failing, but are books built to be binged? Do they know when your attention is dipping? Do books have such UI to do this? You can make same inane argument about doing math for 8 hours a day or something. Also the scale at which Netflix was throwing money around was unprecedented, so much so that other tv shows and writers were making fun of it. That's like saying periods of good investment client are equivalent to a dot com crash or a housing bubble.

sfn42 3y ago
Man i really hate how people absolve themselves of responsibility like this. "It's not my fault I spent all weekend watching Netflix, it's their UI!" No, it isn't. I love when they release full seasons at a time. I can watch them at whatever pace I please. If some degenerate can't control themselves that's their problem. "But muh children" parent them. "But irresponsible parents" Netflix is probably the best case scenario there.
- techno_tsar 3y ago
  I don’t interpret this discussion as about absolving oneself of responsibility. To be fair, what people spend their weekends doing is none of my business. But it is true that Netflix makes UI decisions that encourage binging. They are not evil for doing so, because honestly, there isn’t anything wrong with binging anyway, but it’s indicative of the logic that is going to be used when it comes to producing their own shows.
  - sfn42 3y ago
    You could say they encourage binging, you could say they have good UX. I don't really know what type of functionality were talking about here, I'm thinking things like automatically playing the next episode, skipping intros etc. To me that's just good design, it's exactly what I want the app to do. And I don't really see how Netflix benefits from binging. It seems to me that Netflix is more like gyms - they want customers who pay but don't use the service. The more you watch the more you're costing Netflix. If you pay but never watch anything you're the perfect customer, they're collecting free money. If you just watch a full show in a weekend and unsubscribe that's really not ideal for them.
  - StreetChief 3y ago
    What if they are spending their weekends building devices to kill you? Does it now become your business?
- rain_iwakura 3y ago
  No one is saying you don't have agency as an individual. This is an aggregate statement. In any A/B test you're interested in proportion of people converted who displayed increase in desired behavior. What you can't do is to go on an extrapolate this to any individual person, because that's now how statistics work or are designed. You're taking an rightwing/libertarian approach (no judgement) where everyone has complete free will to do anything they want and make fully informed decisions. Rational actor and all that. Reality is quite different, and if you don't believe me you can peruse a ton of work in behavioral economics that show it. Hell, I don't even need to go far to conjure an example: gambling addicts.