site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3252 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 22, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think a relevant factor - socially if not economically - is the fact that Netflix (and to a lesser extent its competitors) basically used loss-leading prices and venture funding to kill off or hugely hobble cable television, independent studios for TV shows and animation, and other competitors to it's model.

Then once all the other sources of this type of media are dead in large part due to not being able to compete with Netflix's pricing model, Netflix raises the prices, and customers have no surviving good options to turn to.

This is not an unusual tactic - loss leading prices are common, tech firms cornering the market while losing huge amounts of money and then turning around to hike prices and degrade services to turn a profit are common. But it does in a very real way hurt the consumer by crafting a market that is hostile to their interests and is low on competition, where following their short-term interests harms their long-term interests in a way that's frustrating and hard to navigate.

Customers have every right to be mad about that, and honestly I think even non-customers have a right to be mad about what it does the media and the culture more broadly.

The "predatory pricing" idea is very bad business. If anyone reading this is the CEO of a company I'd highly advise against it.

I tried to go and find my post about it. I might have written it in response to you. Instead I just read all my top posts from the last year. I gotta say, I really like my writing. Need to feed it to a text generator and get more of it or something.

I agree with /u/freemcflurry that there's still lots of competition- Netflix has not led to much infrastructure degradation, and people can switch back to the old model or a modern competitor without much difficulty. Plus there are still lots of alternatives to television- people can still see movies in theatres, buy blu-rays, read books, watch youtube and tiktok, hell even pirate shows and movies.

Netflix has not meaningfully "cornered" the market. No more than Blockbuster did anyway, and we all know how rapidly they fell.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats