Just one of my recent experiences - A well made movie "Shahid" - There's a scene where the two guys are in jail having a chat. An entire line just gets censored and Shahid's shocked reaction means the scene was important.
I then found the movie on Netflix. The line they censored was - "This country doesn't give a shit about it's minority". Wtf?! Are we that insecure that we need to Censor stuff like that.
That's just one example, it's almost impossible to watch Shahid and other similar movies on Amazon. Which is weird because they are on the Internet, they don't have a Censor body governing their content!
* Pixelated nudity in shows like Californication and The Man In The High Castle and films like Watchmen and The Godfather
* The Grand Tour had an episode which involved animal carcasses. All of it was removed.
My $0.02 on this difference between Amazon and Netflix. This is Netflix's primary business, while Video is an afterthought for Amazon compared to the retail business. A boycott of their retail business would be catastrophic, whereas a few people canceling their subscription over self-censorship is a non-issue.
Amazon can also potentially be shaken down for protection money. It would work like this. "Hi, we're from this political party and we're considering making these videos a major issue. Meanwhile, would you consider making a donation to our election campaign?"
Whereas if Netflix becomes less competitive in it's video business they lose everything. So taking risks by not censoring can make more sense.
On the other hand Netflix tries to follow the same system that it follows everywhere - kind of how Uber has been trying so far - and it seems Netflix is already backing down when it comes to again pricing. Couple of lawsuits and and bans and I have little doubt Netflix will fall in line and start with the self-censoring.
I do want Netflix to succeed too and not at all condone censorship. Just sharing my crude observations as a local.
The current Indian movie production houses are family or driven by an individual's vision (whether Karan Johar's, Salman Khan's, Yash Chopra's..). The new age creatives don't have sponsors who can relate to the way they want to a tell story or the theme of the stories that they want to tell.
It is not very unlike tech funding situation.
The Indian movie industry is perhaps where tech industry and funding was half century ago. The VCs of that era probably had very specific non-risky areas that they wanted to invest in and there was no way to get funding if you had an idea which was way beyond their comprehension or comfort zone.
Netflix with their war-chest, openness and brand equity has a true opportunity to steamroll the existing archaic business practices which probably hasn't evolved over last 100 years.
However, the reason isn't because old production houses don't want to or cannot make content like Netflix (because it's going to be the same people working on Netflix's content). It's because traditional cinema and Netflix have a different audience and Netflix gives the same film makers access to an audience whose critical appreciation for content is different from that of the masses.
But on that, what is true of today (Netflix catering to 'non-mass' discerning audience), may not be true tomorrow. Netflix is talking to Jio for reaching to masses [1].
Also if YouTube is any indication [2] - mobile phone and reaching to mass is the real key, which as above shows Netflix is already cognizant of.
Netflix has to and will enter 'mass' segment. And they can show 'mass' segment is not as dumb as Salman Khan, or Karan Johar thinks (which Aamir Khan productions has proven time and again that good story telling with good content cuts across audience segment).
[1] https://factordaily.com/netflix-jio-partnership-in-india/
[2] ..mobile devices contribute to 80 per cent of YouTube’s total watch time in India. That watch time is growing at a staggering 400 per cent year on year. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/youtube-mobil...
Vodafone India is an affiliate for Amazon Prime and is offering 1 year of free prime to its subscribers. Offering a year free or something similar definitely adheres to the spirit of net neutrality IMO.
The dashboard has recommendations. In those recommendations, on this single page, Twilight appeared 26 (TWENTY SIX) times.
Any other page I'd go to would also have several instances of it recommending me a Twilight movie. I literally couldn't find enough decent movies because almost every other movie was from that series.
It was the shortest lived account I've ever owned.
Apologies for the rant. Am disappointed.
So interestingly, India is a place where acquiring content is relatively easy because the money made from licensing movies for TV (after it is out of cinemas) in India is a lot lesser than the rest of the world. So it's a new income source for production houses with tons of old content and Amazon has jumped at that, making their content appeal to masses in India.
Along with that they've also invested money in creating content specifically for India which isn't comparable to Netflix but good quality sincere efforts nonetheless.
The Indian film industry is ready for online and has welcomed all players. A lot of Indian media houses and production houses are rolling out their own online platforms with subscriptions as well.
Overall I think with 2-day shipping, Amazon Music and Video for little under $20/yr, Amazon is doing a great job in acquiring users so far.
I subscribed to Prime before Prime Video was a thing and it still costs me only Rs. 499 a year, which is a joke tbh.
Amazon Prime too has made strides in acquiring and producing content for the Indian market. But both have clearly taken a different stance in doing so. Amazon is quick to acquire bollywood movies for Prime and from Netflix's latest content, it appears that they have potential to replace bollywood bangers.