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u/OptimalConcept
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10d ago
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Netflix to Employees: If You Don’t Like Our Content, You Can Quit Business
https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-to-employees-if-you-dont-like-our-content-you-can-quit-116524780922.4k
10d ago
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u/Boe6Eod7Nty 10d ago edited 1d ago
The article is from wall street journal. I tried to read it but they blocked me. Can't read more than the title without paying wsj
edit 8 days late: grammer
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u/etaco2 10d ago
Without paywall: https://archive.ph/c9uzb
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u/Traveledfarwestward 9d ago
This needs to become the default way to post to Reddit. Thank you, stranger.
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u/construction_newb 10d ago
I don't know why this would be controversial.
- Netflix hate is popular in the news lately
- Workers rights is a hot topic so an employer saying "like it or lump it" is good news to get workers rights people upset.
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u/MatureUsername69 10d ago
They aren't really saying it that harshly though. The headline is.
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u/Seagull84 10d ago edited 10d ago •
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Which is backwards... Netflix has the best benefits in the industry and the minimum starting pay for the lowest level employees is $120k - I'm not kidding. Colleagues of mine equal level to me make $550k or more (around twice what I make).
Family forming benefits start at $75k, covering the cost of in vitro and paying another woman to bring your pregnancy to term. You get a year of parental leave similar to the rest of the developed world.
They literally pay you to have children. One friend took 9 months paternity.
Everyone wants to work there (including me, fuck yes I'll take 2-3x pay and the entire year of parental off for my upcoming kid, are you kidding me?)
It's cool to hate on the #1 player, but the reality is they're still #1, and news isnt going to change that anytime soon.
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u/IceColdBuuudLiteHere 9d ago
So much Netflix hate from antiwork edgelords when in reality they are one of the best companies on the planet to work for. Shit is wild lol.
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u/I_Bin_Painting 9d ago
Its like getting a job in a supermarket and demanding they stop selling meat because you’re vegetarian.
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They need to stop canceling good shows after 1-2 seasons.
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u/Icemna16 10d ago edited 10d ago
I don't even know how Bojack survived Netflix. If its first season was released today, it'd probably get cancelled because of Netflix's stupid decisions.
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u/Barneyk 10d ago edited 10d ago
Because when Netflix started making their own content they focused on unique stuff that didn't get made elsewhere and by bringing back old fan favorites.
Over time as Netflix became dominant and as they had a very data driven approach to their company they concluded that their users actually didn't leave the service when their shows ended. What kept people around were new shows.
They noticed that a few major brands, like Stranger Things, is what drew people in and kept people talking about them.
And as shows goes on for more than a couple of seasons the people involved with the show start asking for more money.
Also, prestige content (like Roma) had very little to do with retaining or getting new users. It was just expensive.
Also, as more and more content was leaving their platform as deals ran out and others started their own services they needed more content.
This made them change their tactic and just splurge on new content with the idea of quantity over quality and only let their very most successful shows run longer than 2-3 seasons.
They even "bragged" about that in an investors call. Talking about how much cheaper it is to do it that way.
So they completely changed business tactics and now it is finally starting to catch up to them as their initial good will built up is running out and as they are facing some actual competition.
Old Netflix was all about shows like Bojack Horseman. New Netflix is not.
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u/I_am_telling_you 10d ago
The strange thing is that it is possible to make a compelling 1-2 season show. If Netflix wanted to go that route they could’ve demanded that every show they signed on had a complete arc that didn’t require more than 2 seasons. This way you wouldn’t upset so many users with unfinished series. There are plenty of examples of 1-season limited series on HBO that are outstanding. Netflix didn’t have to sacrifice quality in the name of quantity.
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u/mrglass8 9d ago
See: "The End of the F***ing World"
It didn't have a 3rd season because it didn't need one. We got a complete arc in 2 seasons
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u/lowrcase 9d ago
Fucking loved that show. It could’ve ended at the first season and I’d be happy with the storyline.
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u/ManiacalShen 10d ago
Netflix does do great limited series, but it's pretty much all documentaries! Which I love! I don't even mind the silly shows that just don't last, like the leftover makeover one. If they could ply those skills toward fictional content...
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u/pompanoJ 10d ago
I think they also found that the studios producing content for them wanted to start their own streaming services and quit selling and licensing content.
Yeah, Marvel. I'm looking at you. Are we ever gonna find out what happens in the Daredevil universe?
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u/Raziel77 10d ago
Yeah the death of cable is causing that because in Netflix's golden period like 10 years ago those studios sold to netflix the streaming rights just to make a little extra money so it wasn't expensive but now the Streaming rights is the way to make money so Netflix can't afford them anymore.
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u/Barneyk 10d ago
Marvel didn't stop licensing their content though. Netflix cancelled their "defenders universe" on their own. Marvel wanted to keep producing it for them but Netflix cancelled.
That is a special case though as Netflix would lose the rights to the shows soon anyway. So it is understandable that they didn't wanna keep paying for shows that they would lose the rights to so soon after.
Still sucks though. Daredevil and Jessica Jones were great. I really hope that Daredevil is coming back and that Jessica Jones start showing up in stuff.
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u/CapJackONeill 10d ago
Season 1 of Jessica Jones was fantastic. Season 2...
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u/edd6pi 10d ago
DD and JJ had this pattern where the first season is great, the second one is nowhere near as good, and the third one is really good but still not quite as the first one.
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u/FrustrationSensation 10d ago
Excuse you, the first half of DD season 2 is incredible
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u/psimwork 10d ago
Additionally, s3 is some of the best TV I have ever seen. S1 was good. S3 was FANTASTIC.
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u/chanandlerbong420 10d ago
Luke cage was good as fuck too. At least for as long as mahershala Ali was in it.
Once he was gone it became pretty meh
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u/Maeglom 10d ago
I thought all the Luke Cage seasons had a banger for a first half and then a big fall off for the second half. Still it was pretty good overall, and I'd love more of it.
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u/chappyhour 10d ago
It’s a combination. Netflix did cancel them, mainly because they could take that production money and instead of giving it to Disney to make more of Disney’s IP, they could invest in their own IP. Netflix also licensed the rights of the Marvel shows for run of series plus 10 years, so if they wanted to they could have held onto them for Netflix. However, like any show that hasn’t had a new season in a few years, viewership was low and Disney offered money to get them back early.
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u/AmIHigh 9d ago
I don't even care if a good show is canceled after 2 or 3 seasons.
I care when they don't give it an ending, or a super rushed terrible ending. I don't want to invest all this time and be told to fuck off.
If it's only 3 seasons let the writers know upfront and they can write a great 3 season show
They have some great mini series that are just 1 season and only ever planned to be 1 season.
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u/brightneonmoons 10d ago
Bojack didn't "survive" Netflix either, they axed it bc of the union forming. They only got a heads up to wrap things up in their last season bc the creator had made an agreement with corporate beforehand
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u/boxian 10d ago
how much more was planned, i wonder? or how much longer would that have spread out the last season. i was fine with where it ended, but i thought it was oddly rushed in places
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u/14sierra 10d ago
Makes a lot of sense though. I really liked bojack (and the fact that it didn't go on for like 20+ seasons like the simpsons or south park) but it definitely felt like the show needed at least a few more episodes (maybe even a season or two) to wrap things up properly.
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u/zuzg 10d ago
While I agree I Still am thankful for an actual ending. Netflix should use that method for every of their shows.
Rather have a ton of finished shows that only lasted 2-3 seasons than the unfinished thing im still salty about Santa clarita diet, the dark crystal and lots of other shows.
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u/americanpegasus 10d ago
They wanted to do a 7th season where Bojack finally read his dad’s book.
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u/Lux_novus 10d ago
Before the last season concluded, I remember reading something about how they had an entire extra season worth of story that they wanted to do. The creator was pissed off that they had to drop all of it and wrap up in one more season.
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u/bigbirdgenocide 9d ago
100%, RBW did say in an interview somewhere I cant remember that season 6 was not meant to be the last season.
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u/LetTruthSetYouFree 10d ago
Everyone in your replies is for some reason completely ignoring that animation is dirt cheap compared to live action. There’s a reason Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park are in their 27 millionth seasons while shows like Rick and Morty get picked up for 10 seasons while they’ve only produced 3. Shows like The Daily Show, Tosh.0, and Ridiculousness similarly go on forever because the cost to produce them is a single actor in front of a green screen reading a teleprompter. Bojack survived the season 4 axe because drawing horses is cheaper than filming them.
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u/Dog_With_A_Blog_ 10d ago
Bojack was before Netflix went crazy. They basically had no good original shows at the time.
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u/Banneduser1112 10d ago edited 10d ago
Not true, Netflix poured gasoline on the prestige tv revolution back at the beginning of the last decade. It was when most of the exciting, original shows were coming from Netflix (and HBO, but Netflix's felt more fresh and new): Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, Bojack, Love, Flaked, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few more, and a little later Stranger Things show up.
EDIT: Forgot The OA and Sense8, which is funny because those were my favorite shows in that era
Netflix went after educated, moneyed early adopters in those years, so they made content for smart people. Once they had some scale, and smart phones became ubiquitous for anyone over 15, they switched to mass market tripe for the masses, essentially trying to duplicate network television. Just another casualty of smart phones ruining the internet.
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u/sheepsleepdeep 10d ago
Because of SAG and WGA rules and contracts, everyone involved in a production gets a very large raise when it reaches season 3.
For example:
Stranger Things Season 2 cost $80,000,000 for 10 episodes.
Season 4 is $270,000,000 for 9 episodes.The costs of producing a show beyond season 2 are huge. Everyone touching the show is getting paid exponentially more from S3 and beyond. So for Netflix to renew a show for a third season, they better have data that indicates it's the primary content that a large chunk of their viewers watch, or that new seasons of that show result in new subscribers.
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u/bebopblues 9d ago edited 9d ago
If this is true, then they should only do shows with 20 eps per season. That guarantees each show will have at least 4 10eps seasons equivalent. Problem solved.
And if you can't tell a fucking story in 40 eps/40 hours, then fuck off.
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u/dyladelphia 9d ago
I'm so tired of the 8 episode season structure. Even more annoying when Russian Doll went from 8 to 7 episodes in Season 2.
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u/craftworkbench 9d ago
Right, and then do the ol’ AMC trick of splitting that season into two parts that air 6-12 months apart.
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u/orincoro 9d ago
Yeah, and witness what happens when showrunners and talent avoid your network because you show no loyalty to hit shows.
Those rules are also in place because shows gain a lot of value by running more than 2 seasons. That value is in the long term interest of the network to foster. HBO has a backlog of dozens of top shelf shows because they invested in them. Netflix has a trail of broken promises.
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u/we_belong_dead 10d ago
And series need to stop with the cliffhanger bullshit in a desperate attempt to prevent cancellation
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u/helpful__explorer 10d ago
That has never, ever worked, even before the streaming days
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u/bl1y 10d ago
I think one of the reasons for the success of Game of Thrones early on was the lack of cliffhanger endings. The big events were always episode 9 (Ned's head, Khal Drogo funeral; Battle of the Blackwater; Red Wedding). Then you get a nice denouement episode 10, and instead of spending the break between seasons wondering "what happened" you could instead get hyped for "what's going to happen next because of what happened".
Way more engaging to spend the break wondering how Robb's war will go than wondering if Joffrey called off the execution at the last second.
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u/Maybe_Charlotte 10d ago
It's not about trying to prevent being cancelled, in most cases the season will have wrapped filming before the network or streaming platform makes cancellation decisions. Seasons ending on cliffhangers is about audience retention after a long break from a show. That's also why many TV shows from the pre-streaming era had mid-season two part episodes or cliffhangers.
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u/The-Insomniac 10d ago
They're taking a brute force approach to finding a working formula. Greenlight a whole bunch of new shows and then prune the poor preforming ones. It's like they're just prototyping but they made a whole business model around it.
Maybe only 5% of their users watched one particular show, and only 1% will get upset when the show is cancelled. They keep doing that though and it starts adding up until maybe 30% of their users are disgruntled to have had a show they like cancelled.
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u/OmegaPryme 10d ago
People binge watch their content. Then by time the next season comes out a year later people have lost interest and forgot what happened in the show.
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u/Daikar 10d ago
Yup, dropping the entire season at once is nice for me as a customer but I think it's very bad for RP and marketing. I really like the 3 episode at once then one per week deal. It creates discussions and hype on the internet for no cost at all. You can talk about the latest episode with your friends etc. But when you drop the entire thing right away all that kinda goes away.
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u/Hawk---- 10d ago
They cancel good shows, give way too many seasons to shows that are shit, and push shovelware shows that should in no way ever exist.
Netflix had very strong footing to become a producer of excellent content, and instead they shat all over themselves as though they were Scott Morrison in an Engadine Macca's after the footy in 1997.
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u/nobodyyouknow33 10d ago
Fun fact: this idea is not exclusive to working at Netflix. You can also quit ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING YOU DON'T LIKE!!!
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u/Lvivity 10d ago
I liked Ozark, but now that it's over there are approximately zero shows I want to watch. Cutting content further is beyond stupid.
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u/Matthewmoffo 10d ago
I was super digging Archive 81, I really enjoyed the first season and so did many others.
Then they cancelled it.
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u/dan1101 10d ago
It's getting to the point where I don't want to start a series unless it's already done and I can read reviews that say it has a decent ending.
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u/Geekenstein 10d ago
This is why I cancelled Netflix. Odds are they will cancel any show I start to watch, so why invest the time in any of their shows? Thanks, but no thanks.
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u/mcsestretch 10d ago
Oh. I didn't know they had cancelled it. That's a shame.
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u/Risley 10d ago
lol I’m never starting it bc I know it’s cancelled now.
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u/Tmebrosis 10d ago
If you’re interested you can listen to the original podcast (same name) it was based off of that is complete
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u/eLishus 10d ago
There’s a pretty sizable list of good shows that got canceled. I’m still not over the loss of Santa Clarita Diet.
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u/TomasHezan 10d ago
The show was great. I talked it up to so many coworkers and when it got announced it was being canceled, most of them said why even bother starting it.
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u/Troodon79 10d ago
Well, it was a podcast first, so at least you still have the source material! I know it's not the same, but still
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u/OldBillBatter 10d ago
I’m looking forward to the final season of Stranger Things, but after that..? What do they even have on the horizon?
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u/FrazzledBear 10d ago
Yea I’m at the point where I’ll stay through Stranger Things s4 and then renew for a month when the final season comes out in 3-4 years.
They lost all the syndicated shows I used to watch and they never produced any new ones so their content is so disposable and hit or miss.
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u/Malfrum 10d ago
Arcane, eventually - although, that show will get made regardless of what Netflix decides, they just distribute it
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u/samtheboy 10d ago
They'll advertise the new season of The Witcher just after that I'm pretty sure....
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u/BasicDesignAdvice 10d ago edited 9d ago
Meanwhile the new
HBOWarner Brothers Discovery is putting more into content than any other company including Disney. Something like 20 billion just on content.Hopefully the HBO side gets to decide what that content is. I assume the average discovery show costs pennies to make anyway.
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u/djc6535 10d ago
I like dunking on Netflix as much as the next guy but this title is misleading.
They aren’t asking employees to like the content. They’re saying that their employees have to accept that they will have content that they disagree with. Be that Sense 8 or Chapelle.
They’re saying that they have a wide range of content and if you are protesting against them you should leave.
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u/veils1de 9d ago
The referenced section on the culture page really doesn't have that much shock value.
Entertaining the world is an amazing opportunity and also a challenge because viewers have very different tastes and points of view. So we offer a wide variety of TV shows and movies, some of which can be provocative. To help members make informed choices about what to watch, we offer ratings, content warnings and easy to use parental controls.
Not everyone will like—or agree with—everything on our service. While every title is different, we approach them based on the same set of principles: we support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with; we program for a diversity of audiences and tastes; and we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.
As employees we support the principle that Netflix offers a diversity of stories, even if we find some titles counter to our own personal values. Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.
Not sure if I should be surprised to see such clickbait from WSJ
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u/Theons-Sausage 9d ago
Netflix's pricing strategies and customer appreciation suck. But I do think they have a pretty diverse catalogue of stand-up specials, documentaries and series in terms of viewpoint.
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u/acemccrank 10d ago
It is always a bad sign when a company starts cutting costs rather trying to figure out how to make more money without harming the user experience or product.
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u/cloxwerk 10d ago
They honesty can benefit from less of a firehose strategy to content green lighting though, aim for more quality control and spend better on promoting some good shows than they do now.
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u/directrix688 10d ago
Netflix culture, especially in regards to communication, is different. This is on brand for how their workplace culture operates. They are pretty blunt. Reed Hastings wrote a book about it, they’re wild.
It may sound harsh though the reality of the platform is they’re going to have content not all employees may agree with.
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u/Butt_Hunter 10d ago
the reality of the platform is they’re going to have content not all employees may agree with.
And that's what their internal memo actually said. Not that if you don't like the content you can quit, but that you may have to work on content you find objectionable, and if you can't do that, you can quit.
Bad, dishonest headline.
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u/Porrick 10d ago
I remember when Riot Games used to only hire fans, and you had to submit your summoner name with your resume. My wife was applying for a fucking HR position there and I had to help powerlevel her summoner to an acceptable level before her first interview.
Shit like that leads to groupthink. I work at a different game studio, and I'm fairly certain no interviewee is ever asked if they like our games. Hopefully they like our culture and get on well with the rest of the devs, but their taste in games is immaterial if they're not on the design or creative teams - and even on those teams we'd want diverse opinions far more than a set of people who only like the things we already did in the past.
There's a lot of positions at a company like Netflix where it should make no difference whether someone likes the content or not, and several teams where a diversity of taste is paramount. Unless your strategy is to be a niche provider to fans of a certain genre, it's a very bad thing to only hire people who all think the same way.
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u/proboardslolv5 10d ago
I'm reading a book called Console Wars about the fight between Nintendo and Sega in the 1990s. If they only hired hardcore gamers, nobody would know the name Sega. Their CEO (Tom Kalinsky) came from the toy industry and knew almost nothing about videogames before taking the job, but he managed to take Sega from a nobody in America to the main competitor with Nintendo for a few years, while Sega of Japan languished by comparison.
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u/Zooomz 9d ago
There's a lot of positions at a company like Netflix where it should make no difference whether someone likes the content or not, and several teams where a diversity of taste is paramount.
Isn't that their point? I believe they're saying:
Whether someone is morally opposed to Chapelle's humor or the sexuality diversity in AJ and the Queen or even the controversy in Cuties, it shouldn't get in the way of doing their work. And if they truly believe Netflix's content must align with their personal morals/taste, they are free to quit.
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u/nowhereman136 10d ago
Only a small fraction of Hollywood can choose project they are actually passionate about. To everyone else it's just a paycheck. From accountants to actors, they get whatever job they can because they can't afford to turn down a project because "it sucks". Yeah, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep can afford to say no to a bad movie, but Joe Johnman who works as a struggling writer is gonna rewrite the Candy Crush movie because that's what he's paid for
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u/WutIzThizStuff 9d ago
I managed bookstores for 32 years.
Every once in a while I had some employee who decided that they weren't going to stock or sell adult magazines.
They had the door pointed out to them.
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u/SilkyBowner 10d ago
It’s that the same with any company
If you don’t like working there, quit.
Why is this such a hard concept for people
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u/Rizboel 10d ago
It's not like employees should have a say in what's gets made on Netflix unless they are in a high enough position to decide such things. If a low level grunt employee gets angry over a show on Netflix then they can quit and find another place to work.
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u/Captain_Hampockets 10d ago
Looks like none of the commenters are reading the article. This isn't about subscribers. It's about employees. Hence the title. It's about, "If you don't want to work on a project that might offend you, then quit."
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u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm 10d ago
A lot cheaper for Netflix if they do. They’ll save millions in severance.