I’m getting excited for HBO Max, there will finally be a streaming service with quality television and movies (Criterion). HBO is the only video streaming service I pay for.
Here’s a comprehensive list of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon original series that are HBO level quality:
I'm not the biggest fan of streaming originals, but Netflix has been Best Picture nominated 2 years in a row (Roma, Marriage Story, and The Irishman). And Netflix has pretty much reached parity with HBO in Emmy wins and nominations in the mainline categories.
Seems the trouble is that, in addition to their award nominated material, Netflix also produces a lot of low quality content tailored to niche viewer personas. I wonder if they've ever considered whether or not that hurts their brand more than it helps, or if it's helping more than it hurts?
It makes good things I watch and enjoy. (Net value to me >> 0 )
It makes bad niche things I watch and mostly enjoy. ( Net value to me > 0)
It makes bad other-niche things I never have watched and rarely show up in my recommendations. (Net value to me = 0, +/- the tiny negative of rarely having to /browse past it/).
You’re arguing the negative of 3 is so large that it overwhelms 2, so much so that it subtracts from the value of 1, if I’ve understood you correctly.
I don’t find 3 that big a problem. What I find problematic is /how it identifies 2/.
“Oh, you watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Here’s a list of every shitty movie we ever found that had a teenage girl OR a vampire in it.”
It seems to have a very rough idea of tags, and then just show me everything with similar tags. Except the tags only rarely capture what I found attractive in the first place, and “shitty vampire movie” doesn’t do anything for me if my attraction was “witty coming of age series with supernatural overtones”.
There's been some really good stuff on Netflix. Stranger Things and Daredevil, I thought, were of particularly high quality. Heck, I've always hated Daredevil as a character (he's a blind man, and his super power is... he can see), but I was really drawn in by the Netflix series.
There's been some crazy good stuff on HBO (I loved GoT just like everyone else), but to say Netflix doesn't make anything of the quality level HBO puts out is completely untrue, imo.
I'm not sure if Dark is really made by Netflix so much as picked up by Netflix. Same for The Last Kingdom.
On edit: looked up Dark again and I think it is actually a Netflix production as opposed to a foreign series they have rebranded for other regions as their own.