[sjtindell]

I mean I don’t know about screwed it up. You can’t expect any artist to just consistently produce pure hits. The creativity seems to come and go, the zeitgeist and the cultural context matter so much. Nobody (except, I would argue, Marvel) is able to be really consistent with their art. They were always doomed to fail producing their own content.

[fragmede]

HBO seems to be doing fine producing their own content so I don't see it as a foregone conclusion that Netflix was doomed to fail. They didn't have the back-catalog but they had the head start in online distribution and could have bought a studio or two as they have for video games in order to seed their back-catalog.

I think a large contribution to their failure is Netflix cancelling shows after two seasons. If a show's probably gonna get cancelled before it gets a good run, why why would I bother watching it? People want easy watching, and they want a lot of it. Eg The Office, which ended up lasting nine seasons. Only Netflix knows exactly why they canceled shows, as only they have the viewer numbers, but a rumor I've heard is that after two seasons is when the production starts to get expensive because that's when a show gets traction and the production team and actors can unionize to demand more money - money that Netflix doesn't want to spend.

Unfortunately, in cancelling shows so quickly, there just aren't the shows to keep subscribers on the service - especially if subscribers have to keep picking a show to watch every two seasons. There's nothing more unsatisfying than spending an hour on Netflix trying to find something to watch only not to find anything. If they had more shows that ran nine seasons, it would be easier to justify keeping the subscription just for those shows. Two seasons just isn't enough episodes to keep watching a show and by playing penny-wise and pound-foolish, they just don't have the catalog. Which is sad, because the have a ton of good short-run shows that just needed more of a chance.

The other thing is their habit of releasing entire seasons at once. Their choice, but it's very supportive of my habit to cancel my Netflix subscription every time I run out of things to watch, and subscribe to a different service.

[jen20]

> The other thing is their habit of releasing entire seasons at once. Their choice, but it's very supportive of my habit to cancel my Netflix subscription every time I run out of things to watch, and subscribe to a different service.

If they didn’t do this and I were going to screw about with subscription micromanagement, I would just subscribe when an entire season had been released, since I have no interest in being drip-fed a show or watching something over several weeks.

[petre]

> The other thing is their habit of releasing entire seasons at once

The Korean studios are quite smart with this. They release 1 or 2 episodes on a weekday just like Netflix used to with Star Trek Discovery.

[colinmhayes]

HBO releases multiple good seasons every year. Many years they have a good show on every quarter.