Streaming’s Faustian Bargain: The Grim Reality Revealed
As the illusion of streaming’s infinite growth begins to crumble, the major players are scrambling to consolidate their power, peddling a new era of profiteering disguised as progress.
The New York Times recently gathered a coterie of industry bigwigs to discuss the future of streaming, and what emerged was a bleak vision of soulless, profit-driven mediocrity. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Amazon’s Prime Video head Mike Hopkins, and IAC chairman Barry Diller revealed their plans to sacrifice artistic merit at the altar of profitability.
Their main strategy? More ads. Higher prices. And fewer risks with prestige TV. The executives acknowledged that streaming’s initial low prices were a ruse, and that the focus now is on extracting every last penny from subscribers. They’re planning to push customers towards ad-supported subscriptions, which will only lead to more bland, mass-appeal content.
The ad-supported model will also influence the types of shows and movies produced, as advertisers favor broad appeal over artistic expression. This means goodbye to experimental, boundary-pushing content, and hello to formulaic, populist drivel.
But don’t be fooled – these executives still want to claim they’re committed to producing critically acclaimed content. Sarandos, for example, said Netflix can “do prestige TV at scale,” but only as a nod to the masses, not out of any genuine passion for artistic risk-taking.
The predictions from the industry insiders are as underwhelming as they are unsurprising: greater investment in live sports, more bundling, and the eventual shutdown or merger of underperforming services. The only metric that matters is subscriber numbers – 200 million, to be precise – and everything else will be sacrificed at the altar of growth and profitability.
The future of streaming is clear: a soulless, profit-driven behemoth that will stifle creativity, cannibalize artistic innovation, and force viewers to settle for mediocrity. Wake up, sheeple! This is the Faustian bargain of the streaming era, and it’s already beginning to consume us all.
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