This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think the idea is that Netflix builds up both a catalog of quality complete workand has enough of a reputation that you stay subscribed for the new, exciting stuff they bring you. Basically, they themselves summed it up as "becoming HBO before HBO can become us". HBO has been around for a while, and they sustain themselves on subscriptions and their reputation for making good shows.
If you are Netflix or any new upstart without a strong brand it is absolutely not in your interests - in the most crowded entertainment landscape in human history - to put out shit when everyone else is trying their hardest for people's eyeballs.
The problem is that Netflix's value proposition (or for a streaming service in general) drops the more competition there is. Netflix succeeded by being a one-stop shop when everyone was content to just license out their content. The more Netflix succeeded by cornering the market, the more competition started to wake up, the more companies trying to drown out their rivals in content (aka peak TV) before becoming enough of a monopoly to be secure or at least enough of a major player to be comfortable and the less everyone makes.
Especially since streaming offers strictly worse profits than the box office it's helping to kill and the DVD industry it definitely already strangled. People are paying prestige TV/film levels of cash and likely not getting that return (HBO does one GOT but then has shows like The Wire and Treme that get subsidized by it). Even worse: streaming makes piracy even worse since the minute it's on stream it's also on the Bay (COVID was a great time for just rolling out of bed, torrenting a "just released" movie and having it on your screen by the time your breakfast is ready.)
There doesn't seem to be one. Honestly, I don't think this is even specific to streaming: I think that the internet broke cinema and media and we've been basically managing the hangover since then.
When people can get it all for free it messes with the equation. Streaming was an attempt to exploit this unfortunate fact but it only seemed to be working so well because of a very artificial period of Netflix dominance (and the strike shows that some people think it wasn't working well for them anyways)
No such system will simply ever be as profitable as getting a direct payment for one watch, but unless some magical uncopyable format comes out that's over.
I think the socialists are right about this one: a lack of scarcity is kind of a failure mode for capitalism and here, unlike with patents, copyright and such, we don't have a good patch.
More options
Context Copy link