zlacker

>>exitb+(OP)
Streaming with a subscription is fundamentally a bad thing for cinema, especially when combined with the streamer also producing content. That's because it shifts the optimized variable from quality of individual movie/show to maximum time spent on platform. But the latter can accept the lowering of the quality of individual movies, so you get a regression towards average instead of a striving for excellence.

Never paid for a subscription and never will, precisely because I want to pay for individual movies to reward them for being good movies.

>>vouaob+23
This is less of a streaming subscription issue as much as a Netflix issue. Netflix doesn't have to use the metric of "time spent on platform". Their goal seems to want to be the everything-streaming-app and are willing to produce mountains of swill to get there.

For example with their TV-style content, Netflix starting churning out tons of cheaply produced baking and cooking competition shows during the pandemic -- probably due to the popularity of "The Great British Bake-off". Whatever they were going for, they didn't capture the magic of it, nor did their cooking competition shows capture the magic of "Iron Chef" despite the blatant struggle to do so.

Compare this to HBO. HBO has been subscription far before streaming was a thing and they have an excellent track record of regularly producing quality series with a subscription model.

In HBO's TV era post-2000, you have The Wire, Sopranos, Entourage, Boardwalk Empire, among many others. As things moved to streaming (2012-), there's Game of Thrones, Succession, Barry, Chernobyl, Last of Us, Veep, etc. It seems, on average, every year there's a new must-watch series that ranks well with both critics and viewers.

While there's skepticism about HBO maintaining it's legacy after the Discovery-Warner merger, Apple TV seems to be filling HBO's shoes.

Perhaps Netflix ought to consider cutting back the number of series it's churning out.