As Amazon becomes the latest platform to push an ad-supported tier, TV writers greet this retro model with frustration and, in some cases, disdain: āI thought 'Nine Perfect Strangers' with commercials was horrible,ā says David E. Kelley of his Hulu show with breaks.
Then donāt be part of society is the root of that argument.
Donāt want to be tracked? Donāt use a phone. Or a car.
Donāt want to support exploitative publishers? Donāt read.
Canāt afford rent?
Canāt find a job?
Itās all just blaming people for corporate bullshit.
I would not equate any of those things with streaming entertainment, but okay.
For the record, Iām not blaming people. I donāt even know how you could read that from my message. Of course itās the corpās fault for raising prices. But as a consumer, you do get to decide when the value is no longer there. No one is forcing you to pay for Netflix.
The point everyone is making is that this, along with everything else we have the āchoiceā to consume, is all a greater trend. Iām sure youāve heard the word āenshittification,ā well it was the word of the year and itās on everyoneās lips for a reason.
Things are getting worse but the price keeps going up. This has long been a trend, called many names, from āshrinkflationā to āenshittificationā to āplanned obsolescence.ā For decades this has been happening. Products arenāt built to last, companies arenāt competing for quality and customer satisfaction. The price goes up across the board, but everyone is making cheaper products. Weāre just being squeezed harder because people have less money to spend. And people are tired of this process. We are the only ones paying. There is an imbalance in the way capitalism is runningāand those anti capitalists among us will point out this has always been inevitableā¦but thatās another story. Operating under the assumption that capitalism is the system we are clinging to:
The tipping point for all of this is that corporate profits have been at record highs. Stock buybacks and rising CEO pay and out of control inequality. Itās all part of the same problem: we arenāt the āconsumersā as such in this late stage capitalist world. We are being squeezed harder and harder across the board, our paychecks dwindle in buying powerā¦the answer to this isnāt āwell, stop paying for Netflix.ā
People are pissed because this is one small kernel of the larger problem. We are products and we are the sacrificial lambs for the almighty stock price. We arenāt catered to as an integral part of the capitalist system. We are pushed further and further down to make space for record profits.
They take away account sharing, then they raise the price, then they lay off workers, then they force ads in our faceā¦and then report how well theyāre doing. Itās not just about Netflix, itās not just about ads. Itās about everything. Our very apparent place in this system. We are an integral part of their capitalist system. But weāre treated like fodder. It kind of should piss you off.
šššššššššā Thank you for taking the time to write all that.
I think people are reading the part where you said ācorporations need to make moneyā and are jumping to the conclusion that youāre defending the corporations.
I quit Netflix last summer, and turns out I donāt miss it at all. There are ā¦ other free sites of questionable legality for streaming, DVDs at the library, or even just like ā¦ feeding the geese at the park instead.
These corporations can sell all they want, but we can choose not to buy. Correct me if Iām wrong, but thatās what I think youāre saying.
People love to jump to conclusions on the internet. I state a fact of the reality we live in and apparently Iām a bootlicker. Til we have a radical economic revolution, yeah corp needs to make money.
And yes, I said vote with your wallet. If you donāt like what corpās selling, donāt buy it. Buy something cheaper, buy their competitor. Or nothing.
Or yo-ho-ho :P