Netflix has been ignored by Hollywood for years. Then it resented it for years. And, more lately, Hollywood has bent over itself to imitate Netflix. However, things have changed, and Hollywood is now delighted to tell you how terribly Netflix has fouled up.
“This is all everyone wants to talk about,” says a talent agent, who is delighted to discuss all the ways Netflix has mishandled itself — anonymously, since, like most people in town, he does business with Netflix and wants to keep doing business with Netflix.
Following Netflix’s surprising earnings announcement in April, when the streaming service, which has traditionally portrayed itself as a growth machine, revealed it had lost members for the first time in a decade, this became much simpler to accomplish.
However, you won’t be able to appreciate Netflix’s fall if you’re also plunging. Which means that a lot of people who earn money from movies and TV series have to convince themselves that Netflix’s ongoing issues — the business has already stated that it will lose another 2 million customers this autumn — are Netflix’s issues. It’s not their issue.
That’s because the other scenario, in which Hollywood and Wall Street miscalculated the public’s desire for streaming media, would have massive ramifications. Companies who wanted to offer streaming subscriptions to hundreds of millions of consumers all over the world would have to revamp their business models. The never-ending supply of production work might start to sputter for those who make their living in the entertainment industry.
