this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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I think it's a bit of both. Netflix knew that companies choosing to pull their content would be a threat, so they prematurely started producing content (famously starting with House of Cards and Orange is the New Black). Whether because they saw this as a threat or because of the perceived greater profitability of their own platforms (probably a bit of both), other studios started pulling their content from Netflix and setting up their own streaming sites.
And naturally, other companies pulling their content accelerated Netflix's desire to produce their own content to ensure they weren't left in the lurch.
Yall are overcomplicating things. Let me simplify.
Capitalist corporations + infinite greed = cannibalism
It's remarkable how people can see right past what was actually happening and only see what they want to see. Netflix was never trying to be the good guy. Netflix didn't offer low prices out of the goodness of it's hearts. It doesn't have a heart, it has a ledger. The reason why Netflix offered a lot of content for a low price is because the company was trying to disrupt traditional cable. It was always the plan to increase prices, Netflix didn't become greedy, it always was. It's just that for a time the companies greed aligned with the publics greed. Once that relationship was no longer beneficial to Netflix it raised the prices, that was the plan all along.
But that's a zero sum argument. Every company is evil following that logic. No company does anything except for money.
You can make that argument, but it isn't unique to Netflix.
You’re getting there! Just a little further, now.
There certainly are some companies that seek to do good, or are run by good people. Arizona Green Tea is the current favourite but there are for sure others. The thing is though that there’re huge incentives to being greedy and awful, and a distinct lack of punishment for that behaviour, to the point where so fucking many of these companies are either evil or committing enough evil actions that it doesn’t matter at all the difference anymore.
Also they weren’t saying that the argument is unique to Netflix but ok then.
That's not overcomplicating it. That's the exact impetus for Netflix to make their own content (nothing premature about it).
Yes, Netflix famously said they need to be HBO before HBO could become Netflix.
Yeah I consulted for the cable industry around the time that everyone was just starting to try to build their own services to compete with Netflix. It wasn't a secret that production companies would be pulling their content. There were licensing agreements signed that had expiration dates.
So it was more like a race on both ends. Production companies were like "we get exclusive streaming rights to our movies back in X months, so we need to have our own platform up and running." And Netflix was like "we lose streaming rights to these movies in X months, we need to make some content to replace it with."
It doesn't really matter, though. The only cause of companies pulling their content is Netflix's success. There was no way Netflix could have prevented it.