3d ago

meirl

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156 comments

Anyone who still forks money to billionaires for entertainment might be stupid.
- I agree with the sentiment but if a large majority would stop using these services and pirating wouldn't it result in either less entertainment or more crackdowns?
  
  Nope. It resulted in the original Netflix, aka a service that actually worked and had everything we wanted for a time. Direct reaction to mass piracy and actually reduced it by 90℅ iirc.
  You also can't crack down on non centralized services and the more decentralized nodes, the harder the job becomes and the more expensive. At some point it will become uneconomic to go after pirates.
  And, yes there will be massively less movies & shows which is very good. We live in a fresh hell where billionaires push out half baked shit every week and the only way to tell them is to not buy it.
  
  Good points, thanks for taking the time to explain your point. I strongly agree with the on about the quantity of slop churned out nowadays.
  
  The slop is an unfortunate consequence of the streaming model.
  Because there is so much content on streaming and it's so readily accessible, watching a movie isn't an "event" anymore in the way it was when DVD or VHS was the only option. And when you pair this with second-screen devices (phones) then it all adds up to people treating movies as background entertainment while they scroll their phone or do something else.
  And because of that, the way shows and movies are produced has changed, too. The reason everything seems like homogenous cookie-cutter crap is because it is. In fact Netflix have specifically been asking producers to dumb content down so viewers can still understand it even when they are only paying half attention.
  Of course, there are still talented people out there making great movies and shows, but they are increasingly drowned in a sea of copy-paste mediocrity.
  And I do feel sorry for all those perhaps equally talented but less senior writers, directors, editors and artists who might never get to produce a movie they are truly proud of, because they've been captured by the streaming content factory that demands of them only a constant treadmill of dumbed-down slop, cheap and quick and instantly forgettable - and that people will only ever half-watch.
  
  This is indeed a crying shame. I do not understand the concept of watching a movie while scrolling on my phone but maybe that's just because I grew up with VHS and normal TV programing.
  Again, thanks for the detailed reply, it was very interesting!
  
  I found a VHS player at a second hand shop and got into buying and watching VHS before the pandemic and it was actually relaxing. Even with DVD/Blu ray I can't get as immersed as I was with watching VHS. I would know that at night I was going to watch D.A.R.Y.L and just kick back and not get off the couch. It was a whole thing...power surge fried my player and haven't found another one yet
  
  Sad to hear about your player, sounds like you had good thing going. There's something different about the experience, I agree with you.
  
  They really should have just built their own Netflix but profits get split amongst the copyright holders. Every single one of their analysts was warning them what would have happened if they couldn't solve this real world game theory problem.
  
  The current model has its own issues. The amount of series that are cancelled after the first or second season is ludicrous. Also, and I'm not sure if it's related to streaming or the constant writer's strikes, but series have reduced from 16-26 episodes per season from the height of the piracy-era to 6-10 nowadays.
  If the reduction in piracy led to this deterioration in quality, then I can't imagine it could get any worse if everyone started pirating again.
  Personally, I reckon it will incentivise the numbskulls in charge that no one is going to pay for 48 separate streaming services and they'll be forced to adapt (likely via packaging/merging streaming services together).
  
  They just need to start bundling with other things

156 comments