[dragonwriter]

> So why do we need a Netflix for black people?

Someone perceives an unmet need, and seeks to meet it.

> Why can't e.g. the existing Netflix simply air culturally black content if people are craving more of it?

They could. Someone with sufficient motivation and resources to launch a business thinks they aren't. That's...kind of true of most startups—an incumbent could meet the need they are marketing too, but they think the incumbents aren't.

> Why does the service itself need to be exclusive and segregated?

The proposed offering is neither exclusive nor segregated; no one is excluding people from subscribing or segregating them.

[dcow]

My point is not that I think they're wrong for trying to address a market. Everybody is welcome to do that. My point is that we don't call Netflix "Netflix for white people" and it's not designed in an exclusive way such that it aims to only serve a white audience. I'm probably not conveying my sentiment well: please read it more as "I'm excited about this effort and want include myself as an audience member to help promote the content they are promoting." If you tell me your service is for black people then I am excluded. My initial comment that stared this sub-thread is that I see a social utility to having content "for women" since it's motivated by biology but I don't see a social utility to having content "for black people" since that seems racially motivated (which we agree is an expression of tribalism) and I don't find our tribal desires to assert subculture dominance to be productive in society. I view western liberalism as an effort to transcend tribalism where we treat all participate as equals rather than continue to divide into subcultures.

[dragonwriter]

> My point is that we don't call Netflix "Netflix for white people"

Well, no, because Netflix is the example that defines the segment; that dominant incumbents tend to be focussed on the preferences of the dominant socioeconomic cultural segment, which is predominantly White in the United States, is...not a novel observation.

For many people, IOW, the “for White people” is implied.

> My initial comment that stared this sub-thread is that I see a social utility to having content "for women" since it's motivated by biology

Content “for women” is often not “motivated by biology”, but, more to the point...

> but I don't see a social utility to having content "for black people"

Who cares? It’s not seeking government subsidy, or proposing the existence of a social (externalized) good, its proposing meeting an unmet private need.

[crooked-v]

> My point is that we don't call Netflix "Netflix for white people" and it's not designed in an exclusive way such that it aims to only serve a white audience.

Well, sure, because that's not their target market, but also because there isn't really a single predominant 'White culture' in the U.S., distinct from mainstream culture in general, in the same way that 'Black culture' was united by centuries of slavery and cultural destruction.

But you can certainly find media out there specifically targeted at people of Irish descent, Spanish descent, British descent, etc. It's just less of a mass-market thing because those groups don't have as much in the way of a distinct culture from the 'mainstream'.

[tptacek]

There are plenty of outlets for distinctively and unapologetically ethnic content that serve other ethnicities; we don't know about them not because there isn't much of it, but because we're not the intended audience. I'm not watching any Polish-language dramas because I don't speak Polish, but they certainly exist, as do Korean soap operas and Japanese game shows. We hear about some of these things when they break into the mainstream, but most of it doesn't.

We don't even get all the English-language culture there is around the world. Easy example: most of us are totally unfamiliar with popular Christian media.

Really, the appeal being made by people objecting to this site is that Black people shouldn't have sites that nurture that kind of content, because it somehow squicks white people out. That is a weird argument to make, and not one these founders should take seriously.

[dragonwriter]

> Really, the appeal being made by people objecting to this site is that Black people shouldn't have sites that nurture that kind of content, because it somehow squicks white people out.

At least some people are arguing that it should exist, but should not be marketed to the demographic it is designed to appeal to, because it squicks white people out not that black content exists, but that people marketing it acknowledge that it is designed to appeal to the unmet needs of black consumers, because white people want to buy it but not if the marketing says it was designed to meet black interests.