From the article: "I’m not a binge watcher. I’ve never been much of a TV viewer. I didn’t even own a television until my mid-30s. [...] but I get restless if I spend too much time staring into that flickering screen. My wife Tara has a similar attitude."
This honestly makes me wonder "ok, why should I listen to you, then?"
It doesn't help that they then go ahead and give an, at best, oversimplified explanation of why VHS won against Beta.[1] Not a single mention of one of VHS's killer features versus Beta: Tape length. (And calling Windows, of all OSes, an "open operating system"... oh dear, I get the point you are trying to make, but "open" and 90's anti-trust Microsoft in the same sentence is pretty bold.)
Maybe the conclusions are still valid, I can't tell. I remember that what made Netflix so immensely attractive to me, a "binge watcher" of many many TV shows and with many friends who were at least to some extent binge watchers, was that Netflix was the platform that had all the movies and especially TV shows that I wanted to binge watch.
The OS comparison is especially bad since we have seen very little meaningful competition in that space.
Linux dominates the server space.
Windows dominates the desktop/laptop market, with Apple a niche player and Linux even more niche.
On mobile, it's more balanced but there is still a duopoly.
Personally, I would love to just pay a microtransaction for the show I want to see, but I'm not sure the economics stack up.
I think it would be interesting to see TV move more in the direction that transit cards are moving. You tie your card to your account and pay per view. But if you spend enough money in a week, you're no longer charged for access (a "week pass"). Then, if you spend enough in a month, you're again no longer charged (a "month pass"). This idea could potentially be passed onto seasons and series rather than being time-limited.
That way, you're always getting the optimal price for your content consumption, streaming companies can make a little more money (since these Pass rates would likely be higher than the current monthly membership), but those who just want to watch one series or one episode aren't left out to dry.
> Personally, I would love to just pay a microtransaction for the show I want to see, but I'm not sure the economics stack up.
I'm longing for this for years. I'm pretty fed up of often the only choices being either free and ad supported or having to pay a monthly subscription for entertainment, journalism, software, etc. I have quite a high willingness to pay for all of these, but I don't want to manage a hundred concurrent subscriptions nor having to restrict use to a small subset of services.
It certainly does count, but last I checked it is very hit and miss what movies I can actually watch due to geo restrictions. Sometimes there are multiple version of the same movie, some blocked some available. At least it shows this info already on the search result page. Often there is no version with original audio but only the dubbed one, which is a deal breaker for me.
People went with the content. Windows had the apps, so people went there. Mac kept a fraction because they wouldn’t give up certain apps that Mac was superior with.
And then that whole market had huge disruptions when most people stopped using Mac and Windows most of the time in favour of IOS or Android. Again - because of the app experiences.
Exclusives are why Nintendo continues to thrive with the Switch.
I just don’t see his “open always wins” coming to pass. Google said that with Android and still make more money from iOS. Oops.
The past decade has been about moving to the cloud, more than anything else, and this is a space where the OS mostly receded into the background. However, Linux, with its namespaces, provided LXC and subsequent innovations that leveraged namespaces to usher in the container revolution. I think this has safely put Linux in a league of its own. eBPF may cement Linux's status as the OS of the cloud if it is adopted widely. So there's a lot of action in things that build on OS innovations, but OS innovations themselves have been much slower I think.
And the Microsoft with its 'openness' winning over Apple is a story that ignores the phenomenon that is the mobile phone completely. It's iOS and Android, not Microsoft Windows that's the definite winner in that space. Microsoft has a much more mature and well-loved tech stack that was the de-facto choice of developers in the 90s and aughts but failed to capitalize on that in the mobile world.
One take is that many people spend $70 for a TV package, if they quit doing that they can afford $70 worth of streaming services.
Another is that there is nothing special about Netflix other than being an early mover. It might not be for you but Disney has a meaningful brand and the future belongs to meaningful brands.
What makes it the Instagram? Netflix doesn’t have user-generates content. If you mean Instagram as a shorthand for crap generally, I’d choose a different comparison.
I think there's a misunderstanding about what Netflix has to do.
Netflix has to provide content that everyone enjoys. Everyone doesn't like the same thing, so it's necessary to have a bunch of content near "interest clusters" that exist within "everyone". This necessarily means that the majority of content will be disliked by any one person, because no one person likes all the genres. All that matters is that the hours of entertainment that you will enjoy is enough to justify the fee, each month. If you actually liked 90% of the shows on Netflix, the company would almost certainly be a failure, since that would mean they were only targeting your interest clusters, which is almost certainly very small compared to the whole interest space.
What the author fails to understand is that everyone has different tastes and that is what makes Netflix so formidable. It doesn't need the big showcase shows that Disney has.
The most popular shows on Netflix for 2021: Bridgerton, Lupin, The Witcher, Sex/Life, Stranger Things, Money Heist, Tiger King, Queens Gambit, Sweet Tooth and Emily In Paris. That is quite a diverse set of demographics that would be watching those shows.
And then you have the recent popularity of Korean shows e.g. Squid Game, All of Us Are Dead, Kingdom etc which Netflix is pioneering by bringing to Western audiences.
Netflix is far more multi-faceted and nuanced than it gets credit for.
They make contents others will not make. They will be the number one destination for entertainments for a very long time because they are willing to bring Hollywood production value to every corner of the globe. I have no doubts.
I think a lot of people suffer from myopic pov when they’re looking at these global enterprises. The game has dramatically changed in the last five years.
The point the author misses with examples of credit cards, ATMs, operating systems and video recorders is that those are all things you only really need one of. If there are two competing credit cards you pick the one that's best for you. With ATMs you use the most convenient. With OSs you use the one that came with your computer. And with video recorders ... well, you just don't use those any more.
Streaming services are different. You don't choose one. You buy all the ones that offer something you want and leave the rest. Sometimes if one feels stale you switch it out for a different one. Some people only have one at a time. Some people have several. There is no compelling reason for services to share or collaborate so long as they are able to profitably hold enough market share at any given time. Bundling is highly unlikely to ever happen. It's far more likely that we'll see product diversification like Netflix's alleged gaming platform. These services will need to show growth somehow, but it won't be by sharing content.
Write-ups like this always assume Netflix will remain static.
In the past, they have faced two existential crises:
1) DVDs by mail was becoming a buggy-whip style business. They pivoted to streaming.
2) Streaming content licensed from other companies effectively gave them a “maximum profit”. Every efficiency they gained that led to higher profit was quickly negotiated away by rights holders who threatened to take away Netflix’s life blood (content). So they started their own production company and created their own content.
Now they’re being attacked from every direction by a host of competitors. History shows Netflix will not lie down. As an impartial observer with no dog in the fight, I’m interested to see what they come up with next.
There's a lot of bias here. How many people care about tv so much they would switch platforms for a show? I mean, I care a lot but I will never get paramount+ for Halo or Disney+ for star trek. It's the only thing to do when I am just tired and need to sit down.
I am very tolerant of mediocre shows. I used only prime until a few months ago and I am honestly aghast and in awe of the amount of content on netflix. I feel like I could never run out of random things I can put on I haven't seen already. I think a lot of people do the same to the point where they have a "just play something" feature. Amazon prime had good content but slim pickings! And half the stuff you have to pay for, ran out of free stuff fast. Hulu likes ads too much, low value content too.
My point is, Netflix is "tv" everything else is some site charging for video content. You turn your cable tv on to some channel and just watch what is on, so long as you haven't seen it already. Netflix lets you do that, everyone else, maybe they have good shows but not enough of them. The Netflix UX is amazing as well, it rivals apple UX in my opinion. It just works, even autoplay preview works well somehow! Their app also syncs well and lets you download content for long trips and such.
I have to disagree with OP. Netflix is here to stay. Don't tell anyone but I would gladly pay up to $99/mo for it as-is because similar quality on cable does not exist but I would be paying much more for premium cable.
"Netflix+chill" is only a thing because of their UX, can't do that on Hulu because ads ruin things for example.
I'm amazed people are so reluctant to pick up a subscription for 1 month to watch a show. $15 to watch a season of a show. It's not a life decision, it's a whim.
If account creation and emails weren't involved? Sure. Piracy is easier for some people too ;)
I could waste that $15 on some overpriced coffee or something too, I would even pay that to get out of the hassle of signing up, getting more email, managing one more password and temp payment card too. Meh, just play some boring show on my current subscription, even watching over the air tv is less of a hassle
I think you're a little behind the times here. Most of the major streaming services have features to automatically play something else when your video ends, and they have for some time--it's hardly a differentiator for Netflix. Likewise downloading content for trips. Hulu does show ads, but they've had an ad-free tier for years now. At the same time, Netflix's catalog has declined--shows that used to be big draws for them aren't there any more, from Mad Men to The Office. Their market share plunged in 2021, and I doubt that's the end of it.
Not autoplay, autopreview* , they have a lot of half finished shows which irks people but as they literally came out with new seasons of multiple shows as I just finished binging 2-3 seasons. And they do have a lot of rebranded old tv shows as well. There is simply no reason for them to be less than very profitable anytime soon. I am sure they are losing market share but they are charging more too. It's very hard to beat the first-to-market advantage.
From my understanding the 'rights' to TV shows are actually auctioned quite openly due to royalty systems and pretty strong union contracts demanding their slice of that revenue. It's actually within the deal structure.
So I'm not sure Netflix is at too much risk of every studio colluding them out of these auctions. Especially when they are legitimately one of the richest 'producers' in LA.
This person used VISA, a part of (debatably the worst tri-opoly) as example of something open? Insane. I was genuinely interested in where he was going but this was just a huge fail.
New entrants who wish to take on credit card offerings cannot flourish due to Visa and Mastercard's monopolistic practices.
If you are looking to take on credit cards than sure it’s hard to be a new processor. If you are a bank, it’s fairly simple to issue your customers a Mastercard. I think the small players at this scale are still multi-million dollar studios and production companies.
The real problem with Netflix is that it's a middleman - besides its handful of original productions, it's really just providing replaceable infrastructure. In the long term, bandwidth is free and payments are frictionless, so what value can they provide?
Its existence relies on the delicate balance where it's providing what's perceived as a superior deal for both viewers and producers. Not a comfortable position!
Netflix is cheap enough with enough content to make it a keeper. There are lots of other options but they are too niche (Curiosity Stream, Gaia) or too expensive (Fubu, YouTube TV). It feels like a weird redux but eventually maybe the big platforms - AppleTV, Roku, Youtube TV will be just like the giant aggregators of the past Cable TV world but you'll be able to pick and chose which channels to pay for (Netflix, Tennis Channel, Disney, HBO, etc.)
I think you're confusing the Apple TV app (which shows content from any participating video app on the App Store) and the Apple TV+ service (it's a separate tab within the app), which is Apple's own subscription content.
Now that it's moving to $15/mo I'm going to be taking a break. We have Amazon Prime and could save $60 by cutting Netflix for several months. Or we could spend $35 getting a channel on Prime and still save $25.
I'm going to pause my Netflix subscription until the next season of Great British Bake-Off is released in the fall. I'm having a hard time finding anything else that's worthwhile on Netflix. "Netflix Original" to me is a signal of low quality.
Maybe if they had “channels” that I could add-on like in Prime then many would pay for Paramount, HBO, etc and bundle it into their Netflix. If they opened it up then other networks could build on it as a platform (e.g. Masterclass could build an channel integration and it gets approved by Netflix much like an App Store). Netflix’s childrens content is weak, so this approach would allow me as a parent to bundle in PBS Kids or Nick Jr.
If Netflix took 10-20% from channel subscriptions then they could easily get to $20/mo revenue for many users. No need to raise rates like they are currently doing.
Netflix has the numbers, they need the programming to survive. They should show more patience with shows.
I don't thing Paramount+ or Peacock/NBC will penetrate enough, I think Disney+ will. HBO is kinda like Netflix, I think those two should merge: Netflix provides the tech/platform and a huge eyeball base, and HBO has better production. HBO could strengthen its cable offerings with Netflix programming, seems very win-win.
No idea what Cabletown's plans are for NBC/Peacock, but I think they should consider merging with Netflix too.
Who knows about Paramount+. CBS owns older viewers and network TV, so I think they are too stubborn to merge or capitulate. CBS cranks out a lot of "good for TV" programming, but is it appointment viewing? More like they've mastered the older viewer that plops down and surfs the main networks. They won't claim the younger viewer, won't get a good enough subscriber base, and they won't have a valuable enough catalog to demand good merger or licensing terms.
What is FOX doing? Do they have a big streaming platform?
One thing that is for sure, cable is on a deathmarch. The next round of NFL negotiations should be interesting, because ESPN (and by extension cable TV itself) is already stretched to the limit for the NFL contract, and the next one might break them if the cable economics continue to degrade in viewership (and portion of the cable bill ESPN gets to claim)
So the author predicts the rise of a cable like on-demand service... which is exactly what Netflix was before the major content providers all started yanking their content.
We're quickly getting to the point where I'm paying almost as much for VOD subscriptions as I was for cable.
>We're quickly getting to the point where I'm paying almost as much for VOD subscriptions as I was for cable.
You're still ultimately paying less for a far superior product. I'd much rather see a world with an a-la-carte federated media platform for individual content creators than anything like what Netflix was.
I love that the media has gone bear on Netflix. I'll take the position that it doesn't matter if they start failing, because there won't ever be a reason to completely fail. The people that own Netflix can just buy into the competitors, too, maybe encouraging them to weave together their offerings through a unified delivery system disguised as an independent company. Ultimately, Netflix is just a brand name - a brand name that started off associated with a completely different thing, rare films delivered by mail, and is now associated with mass-market stuff delivered like everything else. A shrunken, rump Netflix is nothing lost.
I do like all the non-English series content, although HBO does a lot of that, too. Maybe Netflix will ultimately just be a brand that co-produces and distributes a ton of the world's TV series, and a few prestige films every year.
Is one guy on Substack now "the media"? If so then I'm starting to understand why "the media" has become the go-to bogeyman for any cause we want to complain is under assault.
I think the author of the article has absolutely no credential in the discussion given that he barely watches content (despite paying for 6 subscriptions, go figure?), however I think the conclusion isn't exactly wrong.
I think Spotify, Deezer, Netflix, HBO, etc. are all doomed to fail. They're doomed to fail because the competition is Amazon, Apple, Google, etc. which all have virtually infinite money to inject in those services, while the others only have a single income source.
Nobody cares if PrimeVideo runs at a loss for years or even decades, and the stock price of Amazon won't move an inch if PrimeVideo looses watchers. But at some point investors will stop lending money to one-trick monkeys like Spotify and Netflix.
HBO is Warner Media. They'll be fine. Microsoft thought it was going to own all of media in the early oughts, and produced... Slate and MSNBC. Apple isn't making much of a dent with Apple TV.
But Warner Media is still a small player compared to Amazon for example. I don't think they would close the TV channel, or even the concept of online streaming, but they may decide that it's more advantageous for them to merge with a competitor than try to support their own platform against giants that make 10x their revenue every year.
Agreed on Apple for now, but as much as I think it'll take a decade for Netflix to "fail", I think Apple is fine with taking a decade to take over the market with Apple TV.
This argument is essentially equivalent to saying that giant tech companies will ultimately displace all media companies. At the point where you're predicting Amazon toppling Warner, you've basically decided there is no point in investing in anything but a tech company.
The other possibility, I think more plausible, is that companies like Netflix will change what it means to be a media company, and media companies will grow to look more like Netflix and less like Viacom.
If Bezos is not there, doubt the person running it will let primevideo burn overall profit. Investors will hunt down the CEOs to force to close it down. Amazon has a long way to go to build up their content. Netflix has huge catalogs now. Just look at their anime section...and tell me who else got that. Amazon has so few contents, most people will afford it thru piracy. As for prime, that is barely covering shipping costs for now. They basically bleeding on the vids. Netflix has direct revenue source from their subscription 100% dedicated for vids. They have netflix button in many tv remote. I have yet to see primevideo button on non-Amazon product prevalent as Netflix. Apple has huge following and customers and yet they cant beat spotify and facebook (remember ping?). Same goes with Microsoft for their bing, encarta and money. Same goes with google with their g+ (died twice). Same goes with Nokia. Same goes with BlackBerry. Same goes with BN vs Amazon. Same goes with Toyota vs GM. Same goes with Linux. It is really for Netflix to lose (e.g. stop making movies series) than for Amazon to beat them. Apple is good in their design. Apple movies now really pathetic in content. They only have appetite for huge profit and markup. Streaming has huge complex deals behind the scenes. Doubt Apple can make it after bleeding loses for a decade. Apple has been making Apple TV hardware for years. Yeah...slow and steady till they reach Netflix level after 5 decades?
I remember when working for Netflix there were three moments where I realized I joined a different company than I thought. I realized they combined engineer’s misunderstanding of their business and combined it high salaries provided by similarly confused investors to dominate a single vertical with no appetite to ever compete with the actual tech companies.
1) Seeing the Netflix prototype set top box and learning it was spun out into Roku
2) Hearing leadership repeat the mantra “become HBO before HBO becomes us”
3) Management’s about-face during the Flixter debacle turned into an overreaction against pivoting or building additional verticals outside entertainment
Not sure others, but Netflix is the Apple in streaming. They are able to churn out mega hits like Squid Games. Look at Apple TV, reminds me of Steve Jobs effort in Ping the Apple Fecebook years ago. Bezos got other interest in space for now. Google isn't famous for ability to create hits....ahem G+ and G-glass. Disney+ has built-in goodwill from their past. I see many kids these days not into Mickey Mouse stuff compare to 20yrs ago. Disney is trying to build more legacy by buying Marvel and Star Wars. Reminds me a lot of their effort of securing Pixar back then. Problem with this franchises are that they tend to fizzle out years later. See what happen to last few Star Wars movies. However if you have consistency in generating hits like Netflix in the pasts decades, that sounds a lot like Apple. That means they will be able to survive to adapt with new stuff. Unlike those milking the pasts like Star Trek, Bobba Fett, adsense, prime, etc.
I think the author makes some good points. I've been a customer of Netflix way back when it was DVDs-in-envelopes and that was awesome because you could get just about any new movie as soon as it was released. The current Netflix is irritating by comparison. I can hardly find anything to watch, especially the stuff I search for. Instead, I'm railroaded into things Netflix created instead, by the algorithm that suggests similar alternatives, all of which feel like cheap knock-offs. I want to watch Star Wars. I want to watch Back to the Future. I want to watch Donnie Darko. And not just when Netflix happens to have them on the catalog.
Then something happened, my time got more valuable and streaming wasn't as interesting. So I doubled down on dvds and eventually netflix unsubscribed me from streaming because I didn't use it (kudos netflix).
Thanks for mentioning this! I actually had no idea that there was still the option for DVDs. Looks like a good service, actually! I may become an exclusively netflix DVDs subscriber!
> The current Netflix is irritating by comparison. I can hardly find anything to watch, especially the stuff I search for.
This is my experience exactly. Netflix has mostly retreated into an "originals"-heavy strategy with an extremely low batting average. Because they have a weak editorial POV, they abruptly and unceremoniously cancel quality content that doesn't perform well, to the point that you're a fool if you start watching a promising-looking series before it completes. If we didn't get such a good deal via T-Mobile, we'd have canceled already.
Surprised there are so many negative comments here because I think the author is spot on. Technologically, there is significant redundancy between streaming services and mergers would cut costs dramatically. The competition is all in the ownership of the content, which is costly to produce, so again consolidation makes sense.
Another very similar medium to TV streaming is the podcasting space, and it has seen a lot of consolidation with Spotify gobbling up Gimlet and Anchor among others and Apple+ going on their own buying sprees. New original studios seem to get absorbed very quickly.
The observation about people getting sick of a fractured subscription market seems also true. Not sure if Netflix will completely falter but if there's ever some kind of ganging up between Netflix competitors it's hard to not think that Netflix would have a tough time.
>It takes a lot of Tiger Kings, Queens Gambits, and Squid Games to match up against the Marvel and Star Wars universes
Is he for real? Black Mirror alone explores more themes in a more creative way than the entire output of Hollywood over the past 10 years combined.
Add in Squid Game, The Queen's Gambit, The Good Place and more original content, and I think Netflix is honestly the king of quality content right now. They seem to be in the sweet spot, budget-wise, where they can afford to actually bring the director's vision to life, without the production values being so high that they can't afford to take risks.
> >It takes a lot of Tiger Kings, Queens Gambits, and Squid Games to match up against the Marvel and Star Wars universes
>
> Is he for real? Black Mirror alone explores more themes in a more creative way than the entire output of Hollywood over the past 10 years combined.
I think he's just talking about mass appeal, not quality. Netflix has lots of great stuff, but Disney has some of the biggest properties in film & TV.
I think Netflix will merge with content producers and become one of three global streaming services. The market share battle is just about positioning before this inevitable consolidation.
I'm not sure it will persist as a streaming service for very long as competitors seem to have unlimited resources (Amazon, Apple). But it does a really good job at producing content globally, so I think it will persist as one of the major global production studios.
I don't see myself ever cancelling Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime. They're the basic 3 channels we watch in our house.
The others -- Hulu, Apple, HBO, Paramount, Noggin, Showtime -- are 'extra' channels that we'll probably cancel & re-subscribe on occasion, depending on whether there are shows we want to watch. (HBO's in the middle. We've been subscribers for years, but the content has been lacking lately and I've seriously considered cancelling it.)
I wonder, how common is our framework among consumers, of having a few permanent channels and then a broader set of rotating ones?
Kind of sounds plausible but if Netflix can continue making good content it will survive in one form or another.
My fear is that eventually we'll get back to a cable model where some aggregator with enough power will combine all these offerings and sell that as a subscription.
He totally ignored the business fundamentals of the entertainment industry. Content is king and content is an extremely capital-intensive business. No existing entertainment business is willing to cooperate on content distribution because that would severely reduce their margins.
Netflix's strategy is indeed the right strategy because they can create long-lasting IP and horizontally expand their business into other entertainment verticals.
Aggregation is by far the worst strategy in content distribution because you don't have bargaining power. As you start adding users to your platform, you will proportionally lose power to renegotiate licenses because IP owners will attribute your growth to their content. It's a zero-sum game.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] threadThis honestly makes me wonder "ok, why should I listen to you, then?"
It doesn't help that they then go ahead and give an, at best, oversimplified explanation of why VHS won against Beta.[1] Not a single mention of one of VHS's killer features versus Beta: Tape length. (And calling Windows, of all OSes, an "open operating system"... oh dear, I get the point you are trying to make, but "open" and 90's anti-trust Microsoft in the same sentence is pretty bold.)
Maybe the conclusions are still valid, I can't tell. I remember that what made Netflix so immensely attractive to me, a "binge watcher" of many many TV shows and with many friends who were at least to some extent binge watchers, was that Netflix was the platform that had all the movies and especially TV shows that I wanted to binge watch.
[1] Here's a very good video going into details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyKRubB5N60
Linux dominates the server space. Windows dominates the desktop/laptop market, with Apple a niche player and Linux even more niche. On mobile, it's more balanced but there is still a duopoly.
Personally, I would love to just pay a microtransaction for the show I want to see, but I'm not sure the economics stack up.
That way, you're always getting the optimal price for your content consumption, streaming companies can make a little more money (since these Pass rates would likely be higher than the current monthly membership), but those who just want to watch one series or one episode aren't left out to dry.
I'm longing for this for years. I'm pretty fed up of often the only choices being either free and ad supported or having to pay a monthly subscription for entertainment, journalism, software, etc. I have quite a high willingness to pay for all of these, but I don't want to manage a hundred concurrent subscriptions nor having to restrict use to a small subset of services.
And then that whole market had huge disruptions when most people stopped using Mac and Windows most of the time in favour of IOS or Android. Again - because of the app experiences.
Exclusives are why Nintendo continues to thrive with the Switch.
I just don’t see his “open always wins” coming to pass. Google said that with Android and still make more money from iOS. Oops.
And the Microsoft with its 'openness' winning over Apple is a story that ignores the phenomenon that is the mobile phone completely. It's iOS and Android, not Microsoft Windows that's the definite winner in that space. Microsoft has a much more mature and well-loved tech stack that was the de-facto choice of developers in the 90s and aughts but failed to capitalize on that in the mobile world.
And porn.
As I recall, Sony wouldn't sell Beta tape or cameras to porn companies.
You could run any app you wanted.
Try that with your phone.
P.S.
also, you do not have the root password for your phone, or your e-reader, or your TV, or your watch, or ... you get the idea.
Another is that there is nothing special about Netflix other than being an early mover. It might not be for you but Disney has a meaningful brand and the future belongs to meaningful brands.
So whilst you may think Emily in Paris for example is crap it is hugely popular.
Netflix has to provide content that everyone enjoys. Everyone doesn't like the same thing, so it's necessary to have a bunch of content near "interest clusters" that exist within "everyone". This necessarily means that the majority of content will be disliked by any one person, because no one person likes all the genres. All that matters is that the hours of entertainment that you will enjoy is enough to justify the fee, each month. If you actually liked 90% of the shows on Netflix, the company would almost certainly be a failure, since that would mean they were only targeting your interest clusters, which is almost certainly very small compared to the whole interest space.
What the author fails to understand is that everyone has different tastes and that is what makes Netflix so formidable. It doesn't need the big showcase shows that Disney has.
The most popular shows on Netflix for 2021: Bridgerton, Lupin, The Witcher, Sex/Life, Stranger Things, Money Heist, Tiger King, Queens Gambit, Sweet Tooth and Emily In Paris. That is quite a diverse set of demographics that would be watching those shows.
And then you have the recent popularity of Korean shows e.g. Squid Game, All of Us Are Dead, Kingdom etc which Netflix is pioneering by bringing to Western audiences.
Netflix is far more multi-faceted and nuanced than it gets credit for.
They make contents others will not make. They will be the number one destination for entertainments for a very long time because they are willing to bring Hollywood production value to every corner of the globe. I have no doubts.
I think a lot of people suffer from myopic pov when they’re looking at these global enterprises. The game has dramatically changed in the last five years.
Streaming services are different. You don't choose one. You buy all the ones that offer something you want and leave the rest. Sometimes if one feels stale you switch it out for a different one. Some people only have one at a time. Some people have several. There is no compelling reason for services to share or collaborate so long as they are able to profitably hold enough market share at any given time. Bundling is highly unlikely to ever happen. It's far more likely that we'll see product diversification like Netflix's alleged gaming platform. These services will need to show growth somehow, but it won't be by sharing content.
Case in point: Amazon Prime and Apple One.
In the past, they have faced two existential crises:
1) DVDs by mail was becoming a buggy-whip style business. They pivoted to streaming.
2) Streaming content licensed from other companies effectively gave them a “maximum profit”. Every efficiency they gained that led to higher profit was quickly negotiated away by rights holders who threatened to take away Netflix’s life blood (content). So they started their own production company and created their own content.
Now they’re being attacked from every direction by a host of competitors. History shows Netflix will not lie down. As an impartial observer with no dog in the fight, I’m interested to see what they come up with next.
Netflix dominates 2022 Oscar nominations with 27: See studio-by-studio breakdown
https://www.goldderby.com/article/2022/netflix-oscar-nominat...
I am very tolerant of mediocre shows. I used only prime until a few months ago and I am honestly aghast and in awe of the amount of content on netflix. I feel like I could never run out of random things I can put on I haven't seen already. I think a lot of people do the same to the point where they have a "just play something" feature. Amazon prime had good content but slim pickings! And half the stuff you have to pay for, ran out of free stuff fast. Hulu likes ads too much, low value content too.
My point is, Netflix is "tv" everything else is some site charging for video content. You turn your cable tv on to some channel and just watch what is on, so long as you haven't seen it already. Netflix lets you do that, everyone else, maybe they have good shows but not enough of them. The Netflix UX is amazing as well, it rivals apple UX in my opinion. It just works, even autoplay preview works well somehow! Their app also syncs well and lets you download content for long trips and such.
I have to disagree with OP. Netflix is here to stay. Don't tell anyone but I would gladly pay up to $99/mo for it as-is because similar quality on cable does not exist but I would be paying much more for premium cable.
"Netflix+chill" is only a thing because of their UX, can't do that on Hulu because ads ruin things for example.
Only reason I keep Netflix is for specific shows.
If I were still single, this would be true. But picking up Disney+ for a month is not a short-term commitment if you have small children.
I could waste that $15 on some overpriced coffee or something too, I would even pay that to get out of the hassle of signing up, getting more email, managing one more password and temp payment card too. Meh, just play some boring show on my current subscription, even watching over the air tv is less of a hassle
So I'm not sure Netflix is at too much risk of every studio colluding them out of these auctions. Especially when they are legitimately one of the richest 'producers' in LA.
New entrants who wish to take on credit card offerings cannot flourish due to Visa and Mastercard's monopolistic practices.
Its existence relies on the delicate balance where it's providing what's perceived as a superior deal for both viewers and producers. Not a comfortable position!
I'd say they're continuing the fight and thank God as a viewer some of their productions have been amazing
I was not aware of that, thanks.
Maybe if they had “channels” that I could add-on like in Prime then many would pay for Paramount, HBO, etc and bundle it into their Netflix. If they opened it up then other networks could build on it as a platform (e.g. Masterclass could build an channel integration and it gets approved by Netflix much like an App Store). Netflix’s childrens content is weak, so this approach would allow me as a parent to bundle in PBS Kids or Nick Jr.
If Netflix took 10-20% from channel subscriptions then they could easily get to $20/mo revenue for many users. No need to raise rates like they are currently doing.
I don't thing Paramount+ or Peacock/NBC will penetrate enough, I think Disney+ will. HBO is kinda like Netflix, I think those two should merge: Netflix provides the tech/platform and a huge eyeball base, and HBO has better production. HBO could strengthen its cable offerings with Netflix programming, seems very win-win.
No idea what Cabletown's plans are for NBC/Peacock, but I think they should consider merging with Netflix too.
Who knows about Paramount+. CBS owns older viewers and network TV, so I think they are too stubborn to merge or capitulate. CBS cranks out a lot of "good for TV" programming, but is it appointment viewing? More like they've mastered the older viewer that plops down and surfs the main networks. They won't claim the younger viewer, won't get a good enough subscriber base, and they won't have a valuable enough catalog to demand good merger or licensing terms.
What is FOX doing? Do they have a big streaming platform?
One thing that is for sure, cable is on a deathmarch. The next round of NFL negotiations should be interesting, because ESPN (and by extension cable TV itself) is already stretched to the limit for the NFL contract, and the next one might break them if the cable economics continue to degrade in viewership (and portion of the cable bill ESPN gets to claim)
We're quickly getting to the point where I'm paying almost as much for VOD subscriptions as I was for cable.
You're still ultimately paying less for a far superior product. I'd much rather see a world with an a-la-carte federated media platform for individual content creators than anything like what Netflix was.
Also: the supply of new users is much faster to replenish for streaming services than it was for all of the cited analogies.
I do like all the non-English series content, although HBO does a lot of that, too. Maybe Netflix will ultimately just be a brand that co-produces and distributes a ton of the world's TV series, and a few prestige films every year.
I think Spotify, Deezer, Netflix, HBO, etc. are all doomed to fail. They're doomed to fail because the competition is Amazon, Apple, Google, etc. which all have virtually infinite money to inject in those services, while the others only have a single income source.
Nobody cares if PrimeVideo runs at a loss for years or even decades, and the stock price of Amazon won't move an inch if PrimeVideo looses watchers. But at some point investors will stop lending money to one-trick monkeys like Spotify and Netflix.
Agreed on Apple for now, but as much as I think it'll take a decade for Netflix to "fail", I think Apple is fine with taking a decade to take over the market with Apple TV.
The other possibility, I think more plausible, is that companies like Netflix will change what it means to be a media company, and media companies will grow to look more like Netflix and less like Viacom.
1) Seeing the Netflix prototype set top box and learning it was spun out into Roku
2) Hearing leadership repeat the mantra “become HBO before HBO becomes us”
3) Management’s about-face during the Flixter debacle turned into an overreaction against pivoting or building additional verticals outside entertainment
Then something happened, my time got more valuable and streaming wasn't as interesting. So I doubled down on dvds and eventually netflix unsubscribed me from streaming because I didn't use it (kudos netflix).
I now am exclusively netflix dvds and love it.
Thanks for mentioning this! I actually had no idea that there was still the option for DVDs. Looks like a good service, actually! I may become an exclusively netflix DVDs subscriber!
This is my experience exactly. Netflix has mostly retreated into an "originals"-heavy strategy with an extremely low batting average. Because they have a weak editorial POV, they abruptly and unceremoniously cancel quality content that doesn't perform well, to the point that you're a fool if you start watching a promising-looking series before it completes. If we didn't get such a good deal via T-Mobile, we'd have canceled already.
Another very similar medium to TV streaming is the podcasting space, and it has seen a lot of consolidation with Spotify gobbling up Gimlet and Anchor among others and Apple+ going on their own buying sprees. New original studios seem to get absorbed very quickly.
The observation about people getting sick of a fractured subscription market seems also true. Not sure if Netflix will completely falter but if there's ever some kind of ganging up between Netflix competitors it's hard to not think that Netflix would have a tough time.
Is he for real? Black Mirror alone explores more themes in a more creative way than the entire output of Hollywood over the past 10 years combined.
Add in Squid Game, The Queen's Gambit, The Good Place and more original content, and I think Netflix is honestly the king of quality content right now. They seem to be in the sweet spot, budget-wise, where they can afford to actually bring the director's vision to life, without the production values being so high that they can't afford to take risks.
I think he's just talking about mass appeal, not quality. Netflix has lots of great stuff, but Disney has some of the biggest properties in film & TV.
Couldn't streaming be competitive too? (assuming "the internet" stays open)
I find that Netflix generally makes people's list, on a list of N--even if N == 1.
We'll have to see if that's still true after the price hikes.
The others -- Hulu, Apple, HBO, Paramount, Noggin, Showtime -- are 'extra' channels that we'll probably cancel & re-subscribe on occasion, depending on whether there are shows we want to watch. (HBO's in the middle. We've been subscribers for years, but the content has been lacking lately and I've seriously considered cancelling it.)
I wonder, how common is our framework among consumers, of having a few permanent channels and then a broader set of rotating ones?
My fear is that eventually we'll get back to a cable model where some aggregator with enough power will combine all these offerings and sell that as a subscription.
He totally ignored the business fundamentals of the entertainment industry. Content is king and content is an extremely capital-intensive business. No existing entertainment business is willing to cooperate on content distribution because that would severely reduce their margins.
Netflix's strategy is indeed the right strategy because they can create long-lasting IP and horizontally expand their business into other entertainment verticals.
Aggregation is by far the worst strategy in content distribution because you don't have bargaining power. As you start adding users to your platform, you will proportionally lose power to renegotiate licenses because IP owners will attribute your growth to their content. It's a zero-sum game.