I can’t believe that it has fallen on me to tell you why most people are wrong about Netflix. The last thing I watched on the popular streaming platform was the truly excellent Kanye West docuseries Jeen-Yuhs, and then maybe 10 minutes of the new Drive to Survive season – because that’s all it took to realise it was crap.
Rumours of a Netflix decline are greatly exaggerated. Look at it like this: binge watching has ruined our collective attention spans.
Well, maybe not for us elder millennials, but I see it in my kids. Waiting for a weekly dose of The Mandalorian and that Mighty Ducks series was torture for them. Hell, if it wasn’t for Nico Panagio’s charm the Survivor South Africa: Immunity Island experiment my wife was running with my children would’ve failed.
Netflix is more than just a streaming service stuffed full of disposable content. It is a culture unto its own. Whether we like it or not, our lazy asses have grown far too accustomed to having mediocre TV pushed onto us.
Yes, I am implying that the all holy “Netflix Algorithm” is as full of crap as the catalogue it draws from.
But thankfully, there is the Sony deal that will grant Netflix the exclusive rights to the entire Spider Man cinematic franchise. And if more gems like The Mitchells vs The Machines keep rolling off that movie assembly line then the kids will keep going back.
I mean, what are they going to watch on Disney+? Wall-to-wall High School Musical? Bizaardvark?
The Disney Channel shows were made for a time before children had unfettered access to social media and the internet and Disney’s current successes come from spending a lot of money to promote across all the brand surface areas.
What Netflix does well is strike localised content deals and churn out shows at a rate that capitalises on current trends.
Yes, the stock price will plummet because shareholders have realised that everyone who wants a Netflix account probably has access to one already. Yes, subscriber numbers will continue to drop because people will use their bandwidth to download Netflix shows illegally instead of actually paying for subscriptions that come with *cringe* ads.
Although, an ad-supported model has still proven successful for the audio Netflix equivalent Spotify.
Both were terrible business models from the start which, alongside Uber, prioritised high growth and market share over sustainability.
The kids will demand Netflix and the adults will settle into a rhythm of short-term subs of the other streaming services to watch specific shows as and when they are released. It is a weird realisation of the on-demand video buffet we were promised, just we won’t afford to pig out on everything at once.
