Netflix (or any streaming service) users are not captive audience. The network effect for such services is next to nil.
If I don't like what Netflix offers, I will simply cancel my subscription. There is nothing that would keep me paying other than quality content.
Their moat is in the content and licenses they've acquired.
You can't watch Stranger Things anywhere else. They make a lot of original content to widen their moat and keep eyeballs returning to their platform.
Netflix also currently has (I believe) exclusive streaming access to Breaking Bad (though you can "purchase" episodes on other platforms). And they maintain lots of these licenses to bolster their in-house content.
There will be more industry consolidation and eventually the content you want will live under one platform (when not sublicensed).
Of course they can. They already added ads. Have you not been watching?
> They have to continuously invest in content [...] They can't simply enshittify
Enshittification (as coined by Doctorow) has a very specific meaning. This is not it. They are only increasing their prices, and introducing ad supported packages for those who don't want to pay.
They are free to sell their content at any price they want, and we are free to leave at any time. No one is captive (unlike social media, as mentioned above, where you stay because all your friends stay).
because it was always at zero?
The acting is better than most US shows IMO, but that's not the BBC. The directing, cinematography aren't nearly as good; often very formulaic (e.g. Sherlock), and special effects are 30 years behind many US equivalents.
In other words, the bit that the BBC don't control the creation of, the raw acting talent, is often the best bit. And writing, which they do control some of, is also generally of a reasonable to extremely good standard.
Having said all that, the BBC's model is "create a law that says we must be paid". I don't think that's taboo in any shape or form, but it is quite a tricky thing to pull off in 2023 with the sensitivity around rent seeking.
ITV and Sky manage to find plenty of poor actors, so clearly having good actors is not just some inherent unearned feature of British TV
besides all this, the BBC is much more than just dramas. it has the best documentaries bar none; some of the best and earliest sports coverage; probably the highest quality tv news and interview work; probably the best late night show; BBC radio 4; a hundred great podcasts; they literally invented TV streaming. etc etc etc.
>“create a law that says we must be paid”
this is a misconception. if you don’t want to pay for the BBC, you don’t have to. it’s just a crime to use it without paying. the same as its a crime to use the train without paying. and presumably if you found some way to hack netflix and use that without paying, that would be a crime too
I’d say there’s far less sensitivity around rent-seeking than there ever has been since WW2, as long as it’s for private interest. there’s murdoch sensitivity around setting up new public bodies that benefit society, if that’s what you mean
Sure, and good British actors do well in the US. The BBC just is more prestigious than ITV/Sky, and might pay better. BBC also has its share of bad actors, of course. I'm just saying that the quality of top British content is more coming from the acting (down to acting schools) than the production house.
> this is a misconception. if you don’t want to pay for the BBC, you don’t have to. it’s just a crime to use it without paying
I think this is a little tricksy - the BBC has had pretty dystopian ads[0][1] out for a long time that mean people pay the licence fee just out of worry about being caught.
The article is about a Netflix sci-fi show. The BBC just point blank refuses to make those despite the enormous popularity of the genre; the history of BBC sci-fi is so tiny it would fit on a postcard. What little it has made is either meant for kids, or is a comedy, which nicely sums up the Beeboid attitude to the sort of people who like it. You can't experience a drop in quality if there's nothing to drop.
And in this we see the reason why the BBC, despite its enormous budget, is quite simply no threat to Netflix and never could be. The quasi-communist license fee approach insulates it from what people want so well that it can ignore the most popular type of TV show for ideological reasons and nobody even bothers to complain, knowing full well that it's pointless. 99% of the energy of the BBC's critics gets absorbed trying to push back against its bias in news reporting, leaving none left for trying to improve its entertainment output.
I must have been asleep the day paying for things became communist. the BBC has the same payment model as netflix, except you pay yearly instead of monthly, and it’s done on an honour system instead of at the door. total communism, man
>no sci-fi
Doctor Who? Life on Mars? Red Dwarf? Doctor Who is arguably the biggest or second biggest sci-fi show of all time. it’s certainly the biggest to remain under one name
>the most popular kind of tv show
it may be the most popular in your circle, or your mind, but this is demonstrably, obviously untrue
>ideological reasons
what ideology is against sci-fi? are you trying to claim the BBC are luddites? or that sci-fi is inherently… right-wing? or what?
>bias in news reporting
why not just cut to the chase?what you really mean is “I’m compromised intellectually by my political position”
Doctor Who is a children's show and dates from the 50s. There have been reports for years that BBC executives hate it and would love to kill it, prevented only by its popularity [2]. Red Dwarf is a comedy and hasn't been made for decades. It was greenlit only because the BBC had spare budget left over from some other show, not because they actually wanted to do it. As I said: the BBC thinks sci-fi is for children or to laugh at, and barely even that.
> it may be the most popular in your circle, or your mind, but this is demonstrably, obviously untrue
It's a few years ago now but e.g.
https://tbivision.com/2018/04/25/netflix-ordered-more-sci-fi...
"following the success of flagship series like Stranger Things, sci-fi and fantasy was the most popular genre on Netflix"
If you look at the list of the top shows on Netflix then sci-fi, fantasy and horror are consistently amongst the most popular shows:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-watched_Netflix_o...
The BBC just doesn't do these, at all.
> what ideology is against sci-fi?
The BBC was fundamentally founded on a deeply classist Reithian ideology and it has never fully discarded this culture. It thinks its primary role is to improve the public and TV/radio production is just a means to that end. Given a choice of making an expensive period drama (what it calls "culture"), an expensive lecture on climate change or an expensive sci-fi/fantasy show they will never pick the latter, it just culturally displeases their executives at a very fundamental level to do so. Netflix also has problems with ideology [1] but it doesn't hold them back to the extent of neglecting whole genres of TV/movie output (with the possible exception of news, but you could argue that combining entertainment and news isn't natural and only an artifact of bandwidth constraints in earlier eras). Netflix's primary mission is just to give people what they want to watch.
[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/netflix-blackwashing-parodies
[2] https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/bbc-hates-sci-fi-a-little-less-...
it’s not communism if you don’t have to pay for it. it makes me so angry that politically compromised right-wingers choose to misunderstand this. if I go to the supermarket and just walk out with my shopping, that’s a crime in the same way that it’s a crime if I get on the train without paying or turn on the BBC and watch without paying, this isn’t some authoritarian communistic impingement upon your rights, it’s just goods and services. and before you repeat that “state-owned, state-backed” nonsense, publically-owned bodies are not communism. the military is not communism. the NHS is not communism. the BBC is so far from communism it’s a joke.
you would think that right-wing people would love the BBC’s model. the BBC isn’t funded through taxes, the consumer has choice, it’s constantly being restricted in order to maintain private competition, but no. why no? because “BBC bad” is constantly pushed through the right-wing media because they have a literal direct profit motive for you to see it as bad.
if the BBC doesn’t fit your incredibly specific ideas for what content it should pursue, how about this? just don’t pay for it. watch something else. vote with your feet like you can do with any other streaming service. send them a letter telling them why. you can be damn sure they’ll pay more attention to it than Netflix would.
finally, “mendacious” means lying, I’d make sure to understand my words before I use them, if I were you
You keep talking as if the license fee is a normal TV subscription. Are you British because there seems to be a really deep misunderstanding here?
The license fee is a tax. You have to pay it if you watch or record any TV broadcast and that includes streaming, any live TV at all in the UK, and that applies even if you never watch the BBC and don't want to. Got a Sky TV or cable subscription? Doesn't matter, you still gotta pay the BBC. There is no just watch something else and don't pay. There is no vote with your feet. That's why it's called a TV license and not a BBC license.
https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/tv-licence
"You need a TV Licence to watch or record programmes on a TV, computer or other device as they're broadcast, and to watch on-demand BBC programmes on iPlayer"
In this thread you keep insisting I'm lying and I keep showing you, with evidence, that you're wrong, but you just keep doubling down and ranting about right wing people. What specifically do you object to in my description?
That’s the key. Don’t watch live TV, no license fee required.
This part from you:
> You have to pay it if you watch or record any TV broadcast and that includes streaming
Total bollocks.
You can avoid the license fee only if you watch exclusively internet streamers like Netflix which aren't TV channels. Which means: no TV news or sport. Pretty major components of why people watch TV to begin with.
But this is well into straw men territory. This thread started with me saying that the tax-based structure of the BBC lets it ignore sci-fi. Now you're arguing that you don't have to pay the tax if you are willing to forego the benefits of live TV, which is a point I readily concede because it's irrelevant to the one I made.
I pointed out that you (probably accidentally) accused me of lying, if that’s what you’re confused by? or do you mean that I accused you of being confidently wrong? being wrong isn’t lying
does the fact that you were completely misinformed about the main substance of the previous comment not make you question the grounding of your opinions on this? where did you get the idea that you needed a TV license to stream, or do anything other than watch live TV?
You're arguing with a straw man. I've never said you need to pay the license if you only watch Netflix. I've said that the tax structure protects the BBC and allows it to ignore popular types of programming. You've been unable to refute this point and so have segued into trying to argue that the license fee isn't really a tax, which is (a) not a point I made and (b) wrong.
You can avoid the license fee by watching only US based streamers on a laptop as long as you don't care about news, sport or any of the other categories of TV that Netflix doesn't provide, just like you could always avoid it by not having a TV or radio. That doesn't mean it's not a tax. Other taxes you can avoid by choice include: income tax, auto taxes, taxes on flights and so on.
I suspect you're being confused by the definition of "streaming". Most streamed TV is still considered to be TV because it's a live broadcast (a channel, that you could tune into). iPlayer is the closest to a UK Netflix and that is also covered. It's only non-BBC "video on demand" that isn't taxed (yet!)
As for lying, you have constantly made statements like that I "choose to misunderstand" or that I'm saying things that are "obviously untrue". I know in your mind technicalities are everything and you think you've never accused anyone of being dishonest, but by the rules of normal conversation you have, repeatedly. And you never apologized when I showed you hard data disproving these "obviously untrue" things.
if you think I’m somehow avoiding your argument, or finding technicalities, I’ll address each part
>the BBC doesn’t focus on sci-fi enough. (or sci-fi and fantasy when it suits your argument).
I’ve already linked to the BBC’s large selection of sci-fi and fantasy programming, which you ignored. I also pointed out three major, popular sci-fi shows, two of which you dismissed, despite both being wildly popular with adults, and one you ignored. one of which is possibly the biggest sci-fi show ever, and has just made a £100m deal with Disney+ to be broadcast internationally, which really does indicate executives’ lack of interest
also, do any of the other British channels have consistent sci-fi output? no, except publicly-owned and license-fee funded channel 4. how strange.
>I’m required to pay the license fee, therefore this perceived lack of sci-fi media content for me to consume is a quasi-communistic authoritarian impingement upon my freedom
if streaming - the primary form of TV watching for most people these days - is allowed without a license, then it’s not really required, is it?
so is streaming allowed?
you first argued that streaming just isn’t allowed explicitly by the rules, then when it was pointed out that this is unsupported by the article you linked with, you either tried to redefine what streaming is to fit your original claim, or illustrated your quite incorrect conception of what streaming actually is
no streaming service is “a live broadcast” or a “channel” that you tune into. they’re apps, on your TV, or on a set-top box, or yes, on a laptop, that you use over wi-fi. in short, streaming is watching video over the internet, which is mostly how people watch TV these days. and it’s not covered. how do you mostly watch TV?
approaching your position more broadly, there’s this possible implication that you would be okay with the BBC, if it just had a Star Trek or a Black Mirror, or Altered Carbon or whatever your standard for sci-fi is. this seems really odd. would the BBC be bad for not having one person’s desired selection of horror shows? they have a big audience too. or what about basketball coverage? plenty of viewers for that. is this true? if the BBC did fit your ideas for what it made, would you be okay with it? or are you politically against the entire idea of its existence in the first place, and this sci-fi thing is just a proxy argument?
besides all this,
the “strawman” accusation is often the resort of someone who has been found to be wrong about something key and is trying to cut their losses. it’s only a strawman if it’s not central to the entire thing we’re talking about. if it were really a strawman, you wouldn’t continue to try and argue the point for another two paragraphs. it’s either a strawman, or something you’re going to viscerally argue, but clearly not both.
and accusing you of choosing to misunderstand is not accusing you of lying, but accusing you of being subconsciously compromised by your political position. lying to yourself but not me. I suspect that if you gave the BBC a fair go, you would find a lot to like
It was always going to go this way. Once you have a captive audience the next strategy is to milk it to death