Building bridges between communities is good, but it isn't the singular goal of storytelling. There are plenty of stories to tell that aren't wrapped tightly around the mission of making Black people seem cheerful and unthreatening to America, just like there are plenty of stories to tell about about Irish people that are about the complexity of Irish people just as human beings with human stories that happen to feature distinctive aspects of Irish culture.

I'll watch a movie set in Scotland just because I think Scottish culture is super interesting, regardless of whether that movie aims to make Scotland seem charming or "well integrated" with my own culture.

But the thing is, nobody (at least in America) expects a show about Scottish people to shoulder the burden of holding up a bridge between Scotland and the world. But there is a sense (at least in America) that the cultural success of Black stories is to be benchmarked against the Cosby Show. Which is weird, when you think about it.

> the mission of making Black people seem cheerful and unthreatening to America

Implies that America thinks this way. Again, nuance is needed.

The explosion of (largely greenbean, but to your credit yours isn't) concern trolling on this thread certainly supports the implication. On HN one might have expected more discussion of business models, technology, etc. Instead we have wall-to-wall "don't you know it's racist not to pretend that race has never been a thing in USA?"

It takes significant historical events to shed the consequences of past significant historical events. The past is exactly that but that doesn't mean we can escape it. People with half a brain know and understand this but (if I'm understanding you right) there's also a lot of using it as a club in these types of discussions. We'll never get away from that without some significant shift in the collective frames of reference. My comment was more a challenge on the wording used in

> the mission of making Black people seem cheerful and unthreatening to America

_seem cheerful and unthreatening_ is in particular what I take umbrage with. That implies that America finds black folks threatening which is why there better be some deep clarification in that statement. But on it's face who really thinks this way? Only ignorant people and true racists have this perception. As far as I can tell that percentage is low.

As far as the business goes I think there's more opportunity in casting that wider net like Cosby or more recently The Neighborhood and creating more appeal for a larger audience. The model of "Netflix for black people" immediately excludes about 86% of the population. Some non-black folks will subscribe, and giving a very liberal 16% of that share they are still excluding 70% of the potential population. This doesn't mean that they won't be successful though - Tyler Perry basically does the same thing (though not overtly so) and he does pretty well for himself. If I were an investor I'd have to examine this under a microscope before jumping into any investments. But who knows? Hopefully they will do well.

The apparently simplicity of marketing new Cosby Shows in the mass media is the whole premise of this startup; it's "Netflix for Black people" because the bet is that Black people will appreciate a space in the media where they can simply tell stories centered in Black culture which aren't freighted with the need to bridge cultural divides. There is a time and a place for bridges and also for enclosures.

You are certainly welcome to subscribe no matter who you are, and you might well do that if you're interested in stories told in a Black context --- for the same reason you might have been super interested in watching Babylon Berlin even if you don't even speak German. Or you might not. That's one of the cool things about pluralism.

I don't disagree with this. But as I said they've alienated a very, very large pool of potential customers. Good luck to them, but they could have gone bigger.

EDIT: short of a Tyler Perry or Oprah Winfrey jumping on board (someone that has significant momentum), the only other way this survives is with an acquisition. Netflix would be primed to pick this up as the start of a black-interest channel within Netflix itself. If this is a real market Netflix will either buy them or start their own.

And just a note here - I care nothing about the racial aspects of it but do like it when companies and people win and thrive. I want to see that here too but I think they're lopping off too many potential customers.

If they succeed with their intended audience, it's not going to matter how their day-1 messaging touched jumpy message boards like us. The content will win or it won't. Looking all the comments on this thread, I think it'd probably be a pretty big mistake to try to make something that doesn't piss off some of these people, rather than --- as YC tells people to do --- making something that some specific people truly love.