[falsenapkin]

I would consider the Netflix UI to be ad laden for some years now with hundreds of originals shoved in your face in a non-customizable fashion and autoplaying etc. Also personalized thumbnails based on past watching behavior. You could argue that it's a good UX for most people, but for me it's always felt a bit more like user hostile marketing.

[dmitriid]

Netflix doesn't have enough content, so they resort to these tactics.

All major content providers left them years ago and started their own Netflixes. So they're left with a few movies from ten years ago, a couple of recent-ish releases, and their own content.

[wardedVibe]

really, content creators should be banned from creating markets like Netflix (and eventually the other way around), but that would require the regulation to not be asleep at the wheel.

[scarface74]

Are you really saying that creators shouldn’t be able to publish their own content on their own infrastructure?

[wardedVibe]

Should've specified I meant movies and other large conglomerates that tend towards oligopoly. I mean things like Disney+ shouldn't exist, its extending the concentration of market power vertically too.

[scarface74]

I real wish that HN wannabe lawyers would stop throwing *poly words around with no legal justification.

In the streaming space in the US there is: Netflix, Disney+, AppleTV, Amazon Prime Video, HBO/Discovery, Paramount Plus, Peacock, STARZ, and a few other players. There is no “opoly” in streaming video.

[eskaytwo]

That’s still a small number of players dominating the market. That’s the definition of an Oligopoly, and the Disney/HBO offerings very much fall into that.

They certainly have the ability to uniformly raise prices (tacit collusion) with no viable competition to enter the market and fill the gap (as even the vast sums others have thrown into it have shown how hard it is to produce good original content).

This is probably due to the characteristic that producing goods (decent original content) in this market is a big barrier to entry - which naturally leads to a small number of players. Natural monopolies and oligopolies are common - but do require closer regulatory attention to ensure desirable consumer outcomes than just letting the free market decide.

It may not entirely fit all definitions, but the general economic theory and applications/implications are relevant to consider this market.

The original post that you questioned was related to vertical integration - you could effectively find and replace it to “so you’re saying producers of operating systems shouldn’t be able to make their own web browser?”

[asiachick]

It's not just netflix. I hate the my Google TV pops up with ads for media. My PS5 boots straight into the store. At least my Apple Tv mostly doesn't shove ads in my face though my iPhone seems try try to shove Apple Music and/or Apple TV+ at me now and then