
Netflix original series no longer get time to breathe - smacktoward
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/28/21078363/bojack-horseman-finale-season-six-date-netflix-raphael-bob-waksberg
======
adjkant
> Cindy Holland, Netflix’s VP of content, said in 2019 that critical acclaim
> is important, “but we’re really about trying to stretch our investment
> dollars as far as we can and make good on our investors’ money — it’s
> theirs, not ours.”

This is a huge red flag signal to me. A VP of content should be focused on the
quality of shows and the editorial philosophy of a platform. That's not to say
that Netflix shouldn't care about money, but that pressure should not be felt
so strongly in that specific department IMO.

While some cancellations make sense (Sense8, as much as I love it, the budget
was a real reason), others are completely nonsensical (The OA, Tuca and
Bertie, Santa Clarita Diet to name a few). It really is a shame that Netflix
simply doesn't seem to have a philosophy anymore. They make good content
still, but only because they do enough things that not everything can be a
miss.

I think we all know we are exiting the golden era of streaming, but I think
when we look back, Netflix straying from its original principles may be seen
as a notable part of that downfall. The sudden growth of separated streaming
services was probably unavoidable, but I can't help but wonder that if Netflix
stuck to its philosophy, the quality of the service may have kept other
potential competitors around longer.

~~~
chrisseaton
> A VP of content should be focused on the quality of shows

The sole purpose of Netflix is to make money. That’s all it’s there for. So
that the owners (which includes thousands of normal working class employees)
can buy food for their families.

Everyone should be focused on that goal, surely?

~~~
adjkant
> The sole purpose of Netflix is to make money.

No, that's the capitalist investors view. The problem is that Netflix now sees
it as theirs. I'd bet quite a good sum of money that was not the goal when it
started. I'd be surprised if that was the goal in 2010-2015 even.

> So that the owners (which includes thousands of normal working class
> employees) can buy food for their families.

If that were true, they would not be trying so hard to turn these excess
profits. With how Netflix pays I don't think you can really call their
employees "normal working class" either. Netflix is a classic case of greed
and profit corrupting art. In some ways inevitable, but it's sad to see
there's not even an internal tension between finance and content. That should
be a battle that is waged daily in order to balance multiple purposes: both
making money to support its employees and investors, and the art of shows and
movies, among others.

~~~
kgwgk
From their 2000 S-1 filing: “Our goal is to be the definitive online
intermediary for choosing movies and other video entertainment”. Why would
they want to become that if not for the money?

~~~
1123581321
\- To make TV shows better

\- To reduce the number of product/political commercials

\- To spread the best media from every country to everyone

There are legitimate reasons besides money.

------
RHSeeger
I feel like the odd man out, with everyone shitting on Netflix and it's
original content. I love my Netflix subscription. There's tons for my (young)
daughter to watch. There's tons for my wife and I to watch (Sabrina, Daybreak,
Magicions, Badlands). There's tons for me to watch without my wife (mostly
anime, etc). Sure, some of the shows are cheesy, but some aren't, and I like
the mix.

They don't have every movie I want to see, but they're also not my only source
for entertainment. As one source of multiple, I think they're great. I can't
think of any service that would be good for a single source of entertainment.

I honestly just don't understand the hate.

~~~
wonderwonder
There is also a good amount of foreign shows that I would never have given a
chance that are really great.

Black Spot, Dark, Nobel, etc. British shows like Peaky Blinders, Doc Martin,
Bodyguard, Sherlock, The Inbetweeners, and especially Broad Church.

Before netflix I would never have given these shows a chance and indeed I
cannot think of a time I have watched a foreign show before this besides
Luther. Netflix has done a great job of surfacing these at least to me. No
idea if I represent the normal TV viewer.

One fascinating thing that I appreciate about foreign tv is that the main
actors for many of them don't look like models like in the US but just regular
people, flaws and all.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I disagree pretty strongly. It has felt like Netflix is deliberately pushing
more foreign language content with bad dubbing and often the structure and
execution is pretty amateur (eg Ares). They seem to rely on the mere fact it
is foreign for it to be bought into as indie or cultural, but the shows are
just bad.

It strikes me as s deliberate marketing tactic. Instead of investing in
creating nice, acclaimed dramas, they put that money into relatively more
garbage shows that cater to mass audiences and try to find shortcuts to
repurpose that content and repackage it to “kill two birds with one stone” and
cater to the indie niche with it.

But the tactic doesn’t work, and now my Netflix menus are filled with super
frustrating noise of these foreign shows, often which you can’t tell are
foreign until you press play. It has made the platform nearly unusable to me.

The crazy thing is that I love a lot of foreign movies and shows. Amour, You
Are the Apple of my Eye, Burning are some of my favorite films. But the things
Netflix is pushing on me are more like network-level crap dramas with a clear
attempt to make you feel like they are fancy merely by being foreign.

~~~
smcgaw
I think that's just a side effect of them becoming a more global company and
producing content for different markets but just throwing it all up worldwide.

Would agree their dubbing is universally horrendous. Even for something well
reviewed like Dark.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
One reason why I’d still disagree is that Netflix heavily engineers
personalization into their recommendations and listings. You’re not
accidentally seeing those foreign titles, you are being targeted with them...
which means you’re not being targeted with similar English language shows that
would be as good a match in their system (because they would rather save that
production money and try to get you to watch the already-made foreign show),
or even less good shows in your language of choice.

For me it’s very nearly at a level of canceling the service. Their original
content hasn’t been compelling for me personally in many years, and now it
feels deliberately manipulative.

------
Guest0918231
Sometimes I wonder why Netflix doesn't produce more content with small
creators. What I'm imagining...

1\. Produce some fitness content. Yoga, stretching, meditation, calisthenics,
etc. I get the impression there are countless talented fitness trainers that
would love to produce regular content while being cheap to hire. Look at
Peloton, they charge $40/mo to live stream classes after people spend
thousands on a bike. I imagine a lot of people would watch live or prerecorded
fitness classes on Netflix, become loyal to the trainers and stay subscribed
for their content.

2\. Hire some YouTubers. I spend more time on YouTube than Netflix. Lots of
great comedy, educational, travel, and tech content there. Most of them are
also struggling for money and would jump on an exclusive Netflix partnership
for a fraction of what Netflix pays for other content.

3\. Daily news. Find a few entertaining personalities and journalists that can
report on the daily news. Why can't I switch on Netflix today to get the
latest on coronavirus?

Lastly... let me search the content. Why can't I just browse comedy movies
released in the last few years, or horror movies sorted by release date? I
find Netflix such a terrible and frustrating interface and I have to scroll
past the same movie or series a dozen times as I go through the content. I've
had Netflix for years, and I still feel like I have no idea what is actually
on there because it's so annoying to browse. I think I'll likely cancel next
year.

~~~
baddox
I’m not sure why any popular YouTuber would go to Netflix. I doubt it could
ever make financial sense. The distribution must be so much lower on Netflix.
I would be worried if any of my favorite YouTubers went to Netflix because I
would be afraid that’s where their content would go to die. Netflix discovery
is absolutely terrible.

~~~
RandomGuyDTB
Netflix's discovery may be terrible but YouTube's discovery is non-existent.
It's common knowledge that in order to get views on your YouTube videos, you
submit them to Reddit or another platform, because the algorithm will not push
your content if you have less than a thousand or so subscribers.

------
eganist
Among other reasons I canceled my subscription last night, Netflix's current
data-driven culture is driving:

• Good shows to shut down,

• Terrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad concepts ("The Goop Lab") to be
approved—actually, this was the named reason for why I canceled; I actually
wrote "The Goop Lab" in the Other cancellation box.
[https://globalnews.ca/news/6488433/goop-uk-health-warning-
gw...](https://globalnews.ca/news/6488433/goop-uk-health-warning-gwyneth-
paltrow/)

• Blockbusters to lapse,

• Fillers to be licensed.

It's just not worth the 15.99/mo I've been paying them anymore, which is
unfortunate. Five years ago, originals had serious promise.

~~~
zyang
I was about to close my account and realized there was a lower tier, $8/mon.

~~~
eganist
You're not wrong, but in standard def for one device, it doesn't work with my
use case (laptop/tablet).

Works on phones/smaller screens for sure.

------
tpmx
I would have shut down my Netflix subscription two months ago, but since I'm
sharing it with my 70+ mom who's still enjoying it for some reason, I'm
keeping it going for now.

Otherwise, for me (~40 yo male in Sweden), Netflix isn't very interesting at
all. I think its data-driven culture is awesome at creating shows that are
fascinating to its California-based execs.

Also: I wish they'd tone down the politics. I'm with Bill Burr on this: Not
every single fxxing thing has to be about politics. We get it. We're onboard.
We don't need to be preached at in every singly fxxking show though. Remember,
we're paying for a service here. We expect being entertained. Not getting
preached at.

~~~
eganist
You have the power.

~~~
tpmx
This isn't a complaint.

~~~
ravenstine
The voting system on HN is a joke. To some degree it does work for an audience
of intellectuals, but it wouldn't work _at all_ with a general audience.
Everyone just downvotes what offends their sensibilities, but because messages
get greyed out, moved down the page, and eventually hidden with relatively few
downvotes, they're effectively saying "nobody should hear your opinion", no
matter how civil your language.

Just take the downvotes as a badge of pride. I expect this very comment to get
downvoted and those same voters won't even bother to tell me why I'm wrong.

~~~
baddox
Complaining about how people vote is explicitly against the Hacker News
guidelines. That’s likely why people downvote comments that are only
complaining about downvotes.

------
pkorzeniewski
I had Netflix for a brief moment and all their original series felt really
dull, I couldn't find one that would hook me for longer than several episodes,
I was almost forcing myself to watch them - I much prefer old stuff, maybe not
so stunning visually, but with much more substance, that's why I switched to
HBO GO.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
Funny. I can't stand most of the stuff on HBO. I had it for a few months to
watch GoT, but I couldn't find anything else I wanted to watch. Although
recently Watchmen was really good.

I love a ton of stuff from Netflix: Ozark, Unbelievable, Witcher, Lost In
Space, Altered Carbon, and a lot more stuff I can't think of at the moment.

~~~
crocodiletears
If you have a Prime subscription, you might appreciate HBO's Rome. But I do
agree that their catalogue can be pretty hit or miss.

------
ravenstine
This is isn't just about Netflix, though I'm sure there were some people who
saw Netflix as a bastion for good TV. At this point, entertainment is all
about quantity of mediocrity and CGI spectacle. They have the formula to keep
most people watching while putting in the least amount of effort in terms of
storytelling. If you can psychoanalyze your audience, you can keep them hooked
and feed them whatever messages you want. All Netflix needed was to set up
people's expectations and then gradually reduce their excellence so the
audience continues to watch despite the mediocre quality.

If more people besides those on HN cancel their Netflix subscriptions, that
will be a good thing because maybe they'll stop "binge watching" with pride
and start doing other things with their time. I'm pessimistic on both fronts
because I don't think the average person is going to cancel their Netflix, and
even if they did I think they'll continue to vegetate while watching Amazon
Prime, Disney+, Hulu, CBS All Access, etc.

------
Lammy
It's super weird that there isn't a single result when I Ctrl+F this page for
the word "union". Bojack's animators unionized, and four months later their
show was canceled.

A story in two headlines:

[https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/bojack-horsemans-
animators-h...](https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/bojack-horsemans-animators-
have-voted-to-unionize.html)

[https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/raphael-bob-waksberg-
bojack-...](https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/raphael-bob-waksberg-bojack-
horseman-ending-interview.html)

------
SirensOfTitan
I had hoped Netflix would usher in another golden age of film: throwing small
budgets at innovative content creators (like Binging with Babish), up-and-
coming auteurs (think like early 80s David Lynch). That didn’t happen. The
data driven approach regresses content to the mean and I worry stifles
creativity.

Netflix doesn’t seem to get that I’m not going to invest my time in a show
that likely won’t get a second season, and if it doe almost certainly never a
third. I find it mildly heartbreaking when I get invested in characters just
enough and then I never get to see their archs finished. I’m still so sad they
canceled The OA.

~~~
dorfsmay
I'm the opposit. What can be so detailed that it needs more than a 90 mins
film?

Some super complicated thing where every detail count and that lasted several
decades in real life? Ok, make it one season, and let say 5 or 6 episodes max.

What in the world could be so intersting that it needs to be several season?
By the time you're done you could have done a PhD and know absolutely
everything about a particular subject!

~~~
usrusr
The problem is not shows designed for, say, six episodes only being six
episodes long, that's perfectly fine, just like 90 minutes is perfectly fine.

The "limited series" format is a very good match for flatrate streaming and
there are lots of very good examples, mostly from the UK.

The problem is shows designed for >30 episodes being cut short. Do that too
often and you'll see massive reluctance to start watching any new show that
isn't a limited series. When was the last time you considered using the Google
chat system du jour?

------
MobileVet
For those griping about quality... Emmy wins and nominations would refute your
personal bias. Content doesn’t appeal to everyone but critics have been very
impressed with some of the content on Netflix.

[https://deadline.com/2019/09/2019-emmys-wins-network-
shows-s...](https://deadline.com/2019/09/2019-emmys-wins-network-shows-
scorecards-1202742071/)

~~~
casefields
Award shows are merely popularity contests after a certain threshold of
quality is met.

Source: the Emmy and NAACP award sitting on my shelf.

------
frank086
I moved back to DVD.com, 9.99 for one disc at a time and you can get Blurays
(with 7.1 sound, something no one seems to stream) of the stuff Netflix can't
stream because it went to Disney+, Hulu, etc. They also still have a
reasonably priced 3 disc program if you trend more toward TV binge watching
than movies.

Plus add in MakeMKV and Plex and there is a nice little ecosystem. Not as
convenient as the golden age of Netflix, but now that everyone wants their own
streaming service, I'd rather just cycle through a couple discs a week than do
the whole lets get Disney+ for the Mandalorian, okay bingd watched that now
lets get Netflix for Witcher, oh now Season 2 of the Mandalorian is out, back
to Disney, oh look HBO has a new thing, etc.

~~~
eganist
Before anyone says anything:

DVD.com is owned by Netflix. And honestly, if you're hooked on the
availability of content and don't want to ditch the Netflix pipeline
completely, switching to DVD.com probably makes sense. The revenue shift from
Netflix to DVD.com will have the same net impact on spending decisions.

~~~
frank086
Yeah, they even have a bundle deal to have DVDs and some level of streaming.
It is interesting because at one point Netflix was trying to sell of the disc
shipping business because physical media was dead and the whole service felt
neglected.

Now that mailing you a disc is the only way they can get you certain content,
the service is back closer to the level it was when they were killing
Blockbuster.

------
aguyfromnb
I'm actually surprised that anyone thought that Netflix would ever end up as
anything but a "TV Network", albeit with a nice interface. The business model
is what it is.

All the hype, the stratospheric share price, the prognostications of
"disruption" (which they certainly did) don't change the fact that it's all
about the content. And in that sense, Netflix doesn't really have any
advantages. Creators will go where the pay is best, which leaves less for the
distributor; winner's curse and all that.

~~~
segmondy
Netflix is bigger than any TV Network, the only thing missing is live shows
but not all TV networks carry live shows. If Netflix decided to push content
instead of allowing it to be pulled, they have enough content to have 50+
channels.

------
MobileVet
Netflix is definitely pursuing the quantity over quality strategy, which
doesn’t appeal to me.

That said, there are some really strong offerings hidden in the noise. The
shift to originals over licensed is hurting the average quality level... but
it definitely makes sense as a long term play.

It still makes sense for me and I am happy support the many gambles they take
with content... even if most are lackluster.

~~~
dorfsmay
I feel the world is splitting in two:

One half watching YouTube at 1.5 speed and skipping the first Wadsworth
constant minutes of it, reading Wikipedia and looking for more ways to get
directly at the essence of things.

The other half who wants to pay a fixed monthly price for somebody (Netflix
today) to keep them "entertained" for hours while filling up their non-working
hours.

~~~
RandomGuyDTB
It's always been like that, since when television was mostly free and you
watched the same four channels every day unless you preferred the library
because you could browse encyclopediae and find one or two specialized books
about a topic you were interested in. The 'Net just made us more aware of the
latter category.

~~~
dorfsmay
The big difference is that Netflix partly replace cinemas for some people but
they are adding less and less movies and more and more series.

------
Mountain_Skies
AMC on the other hand seems to take the opposite approach, at times stretching
a series out for seasons after it has run out of energy and material. Wonder
if the difference in the approaches is due to differences in the subscription
versus advertising revenue models.

------
lihaciudaniel
This was probably the best show that I've ever watched.

------
mathattack
We barely watch it but even if we see one movie a month it’s much cheaper than
the theater. Factor in concessions and it’s a steal.

