[jedberg]

They aren't really subcontractors of Netflix. They're a separate company selling a product to Netflix (a complete TV show).

If Netflix buys a laptop from Apple and Apple does something wrong, you don't blame Netflix for it, you blame Apple.

[SirSourdough]

I don’t think this is cut and dry, and instead depends on the nature of the relationship. To buy a laptop, Netflix didn’t have board meetings, deep contract negotiations involving the executives of both businesses, or an ongoing relationship.

The laptop is effectively a commodity, and any injustice Apple commits is amortized over many million laptop owners who tacitly but minorly endorsed that injustice. Netflix buying a show feels like a much more intimate relationship where much more of the responsibility lies with Netflix as the only buyer of the product.

[jedberg]

Netflix isn't the only buyer though. They make the show and sell it to whichever studio compensates them the best. And then sometimes sell it to a different studio in a different country.

Show purchases don't go past the board. They don't even always go past the CEO.

It's really more akin to buying enterprise software. So sure, change the metaphor to Oracle database. You don't complain about Oracle's customers where Oracle does something bad.

[8note]

You could also compare it to buying something from a terrorist, or hiring an assassin.

When it's something we care about, we definitely blame the customers too.

[anotherman554]

That's a bad metaphor, though, it's more like if Netflix hired Apple to make a special type of Laptop that only Netflix will sell, and the laptop will be marketed as "The Netflix Laptop".

[jedberg]

You're right it's a bad metaphor. It's more like enterprise software. So change "laptop" to Salesforce or Oracle.