[HN Gopher] Google Kills YouTube Originals
___________________________________________________________________
Google Kills YouTube Originals
Author : nixass
Score : 154 points
Date : 2022-01-19 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| sremani wrote:
| Original Content just goes against the fundamental appeal of
| YouTube that is "anyone can be creator". Of course, their
| investments in Shorts to compete against TicTok proves that they
| are no longer only game in town for "creators", even though the
| format varies others are coming after them.
| acdha wrote:
| Did they ever promote this? I'm a YouTube Premium subscriber and
| while technically there's a button in the navigation I couldn't
| say that I've ever heard of any of their originals and clicking
| on it just gives an unstructured mess with little reason to care
| about any of it.
| bayofpigs wrote:
| wdroz wrote:
| Cobra Kai was the only youtube original I watched. Time to time I
| checked the "Originals" section, but it's seem all contents
| are/were about US-centered social justice stuff...
| da_chicken wrote:
| Honestly, I'm not all that surprised, but I do think that YouTube
| didn't do a very good job at selling YouTube Originals.
|
| They didn't do what every other platform did initially: Fill it
| with content to draw people in. It's certainly difficult to do in
| the modern era of hyper fragmented content platforms, but YouTube
| is still a centerpiece of modern content delivery. Without that
| content, all they could offer was their actual original content.
| Yes, the YouTube Movies channel exists, but that's not a wide
| selection.
|
| I don't think that's necessarily all YouTube's fault. The siloing
| of content is a significant problem, and this failure likely
| represents real problems for the future of streaming for
| customers.
|
| Of the Originals content, Cobra Kai was the only _good_ show I
| recall from it, and they sold that to Netflix. The only other
| Original I can think of is MindField, which was a good enough
| show, but I kept bouncing off of it. It didn 't really seem
| interested in _answering_ the questions it posed.
| everdrive wrote:
| I loved bday eve, but really didn't enjoy mindfield. Michael
| often felt like he was working under duress, and the episodes
| had a very "produced" feel to them.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I had to search to find out what programs YouTube actually
| produced, because I hadn't seen one in a good long while:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_YouTube_Premium_origin...
|
| Looks like most English-language content stopped in 2018 or 2019,
| though they continued producing films, documentaries, and a
| surprisingly large slate of kids shows through 2021.
|
| I guess my point is that I don't think I've seen a YouTube
| Original advertised or recommended to me in _years,_ so either
| this is a mercy killing of a division that never made anything
| all that good, or Google simply has no idea how to market the
| things that it creates. Heck, the one success of YouTube
| Originals that I remember, Cobra Kai, is now a Netflix show. How
| does that happen?
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| If only they had ran ads for the original shows instead of that
| exasperating "Do you want to try YouTube Premium?", "How about
| now?", "OK, I will ask you every time you open the app this
| week, just in case you change your mind".
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Ironically, Google's reluctance to provide tools for
| advertisors to make sure their ads perform means that Google
| also has no competence at making sure its own ads perform.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| As a YouTube Premium subscriber, even once you're paying for
| the service, they don't really show you the originals any
| more than they did before. I do have an "Originals" button in
| the sidebar, but I don't think I've ever clicked it.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Same here. I tried, and later paid for YouTube Premium for
| three months, mostly to get rid of ads their way. The
| experience was like regular YouTube, the YouTube Music
| service was very underwhelming, and the ad-free experience
| was not enough by itself to justify the service.
| pssflops wrote:
| This is a shame, for me, as I really enjoyed Weird City[0] and
| was very hopeful of it getting more episodes made.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_City_(TV_series)
| Aunche wrote:
| For an organization with effectively infinite money, Google is
| very stingy when it comes entering a new space. Netflix sunk
| hundreds of millions of dollars on originals from the start. For
| every hit like House of Cards, there was a flop like Marco Polo,
| but this is still what kept Netflix relevant to this day.
| Meanwhile, the only YouTube Original I've heard of is Cobra Kai,
| and even that seemed relatively low budget.
|
| The same goes for Stadia too. The platform is good enough, but
| there just isn't much incentive for people to join it.
| branko_d wrote:
| Ironically, Cobra Kai is on Netflix now. They bought it after
| YouTube stopped supporting it.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| And it's doing well.
| benbristow wrote:
| MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) did some cool YouTube Originals about
| old-school tech hardware. Worth a watch.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Also VSauce's Mind Field.
| benbristow wrote:
| Ah yes - he did an interesting one about complete
| isolation.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| Weren't they available to free users, too? I remember
| watching them and I never paid for premium.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Yep, most latest Originals were just timed exclusives I
| believe. Came to Premium members ad-free, then some time
| later became available widely with ads.
| SomewhatLikely wrote:
| If you like content about old school tech check out
| Technology Connections on YouTube.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| I love how well that channel is doing. It's an endless
| rabbit hole of fascination. I will never look at the color
| brown the same way again:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4aWZRtTwU
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I miss Marco Polo, it was fun :/
| terafo wrote:
| I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner. It was obvious for a long
| time that they were not interested in making any substantial
| content investments. Which is a shame since no one was able to
| make video streaming experience better than Youtube. And I think
| Google Stadia will have the same fate. They dissolved their own
| studios, almost stopped investment into 3rd party games and,
| likely, won't be able to keep up with xCloud and Geforce Now if
| they don't radically change their strategy.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Maybe they wanted to fight the popular perception that they
| cancel all of their new efforts within a year?
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Ask HN, Show HN... There should be a Google Kills tag to keep
| track of all the decommissioned services for the alphabet company
| peanut_worm wrote:
| seemed weird to promote original content on a website that is
| entirely original content
|
| Youtube doesn't seem like it should be competing with Netflix and
| Hulu its a whole different type of website.
| terafo wrote:
| It is still possible to rent or buy a movie on Youtube. Not
| sure why won't they try to compete with Netflix, Apple TV and
| Prime Video(and many more streaming services). They have huge
| install base and superior user experience.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Originals to me was about giving said great content creators
| more funds to produce their wilder/more expensive ideas they
| didn't have the budget for themselves. It was basically just
| boosting the existing content and upping the production quality
| a bit. It probably wasn't very lucrative though given that
| people watching Youtube don't care about production quality
| that much imo, and top creators already have decent production.
| dpweb wrote:
| My YouTube usage is about 7 hrs per day for the last four or five
| years and I don't think I have ever clicked on an original, and
| it was always in my feed.
|
| Definitely always seemed like a bad fit. But I think the idea of
| crowdsourcing content like tictok or youtube which is those
| platforms, doesn't work for longer form, episodic shows or
| movies. You get established stars.
|
| There's no real finite limit on the amount of tictoks can be
| created people will like but is a finite amount on the talent
| available to make a watchable movie or show.
| Steltek wrote:
| I don't know if I hit 7 hours but I definitely watch a lot of
| YouTube. You're spot on about it being a bad fit. Originals
| were basically TV shows and I didn't come to YouTube for TV.
| Who really does?
| rchaud wrote:
| They should have purchased Quibi's library, which would be
| perfect for making Youtube Shorts something more substantive
| than a TikTok ripoff.
| ballenf wrote:
| The Vsauce originals were/are really good. Only decent Original
| series I could find when I first got Red.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| I feel like my YouTube Watch hours get less and less over time.
| Not sure, but I think the recommendation algorithm has become
| very bad. Back in the days I used to find new and interesting
| stuff, but these days it just keeps recommending the same thing
| over and over.
|
| Interestingly, those hours just go to TikTok now.
| thenickdude wrote:
| Try out the "new to me" recommendation button, it suggests
| videos that are further afield from your regular pool. I
| found it a good way to discover new creators.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Yea, their algorithm is terrible compare to decades ago. It
| recommended a video that I fully watched a 45-min video an
| hour before the recommendation. When I saw it in the
| suggested to watch, I was confused because I did watch this
| and thought that it might be a second video. I checked my
| Watch History, yep it is the exact same video I watched
| already and yet YouTube algorithm decides that I didn't.
|
| I am staying on YouTube because it is one of the most
| accessible site for Deaf users as they offers closed
| captioning/subtitle services. And I am fortunate that lot of
| content creators have the option enabled. I preferred
| professional captioning over auto-captioning but not every
| content creator could afford such a service.
|
| In YouTube, I don't rely on their algorithm to tell me the
| best video to watch since their algorithm is shit. Instead I
| relies on content creator's community page and word-of-mouth
| to expand my viewing and subscriptions. Their algorithm kept
| recommending me Classically Abby (Ben Shapiro's sister)
| channel every chance they get and I hardly ever watch
| political stuff on YouTube.
| JaggerFoo wrote:
| I'm not at your level of watching, but I have premium and it is
| my goto platform over HBO, Netflix, Hulu etc. I never bought
| into originals, but some the free movies they offer are good.
|
| It saves me time with content I can use for
| development/engineering, NFL and sports, finance, blockchain,
| music, podcasts, home improvement, news, Leviathan (2014 film),
| etc. and occasionally one of the YouTubers like Mr. Beast.
|
| It's hard for me to find new content i'm will to binge, but the
| subscription platforms need to keep the pipeline running.
|
| Cheers
| skoocda wrote:
| As someone who spends < 7 minutes per day on YouTube
| (average)... What sort of things do you watch for 7 hours per
| day? I honestly can't imagine finding that much interesting
| content on YouTube
| Lammy wrote:
| For me it's a great way to have some background noise while I
| work. I especially like railfan videos since they hit the
| sweet spot of:
|
| - loud enough to drown out other, outside sounds (big problem
| for me these last two years WFH in a city apartment)
|
| - consistent enough that they stop being their own
| distraction once you get used to it (hours of soothing air
| horns and crossing-guard chimes!)
|
| - cool way to see landscape/drone shots of parts of the world
| I might never visit
|
| - repetitive enough that any time I do take a mental break
| and actually focus on the video I don't feel like I've missed
| anything (my biggest problem with spoken-word videos / TV
| series / some music)
|
| This is a good example, plus I'm in totally love with those
| high-hood GP9s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRE_rsiqSoQ
|
| Here are some channels I enjoy for their long-form videos:
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/c/DelayInBlockProductions
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/c/RailfanJunction
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/c/RanOutOnARail
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/c/CoasterFan2105
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/c/CaliforniaRailfanner
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/c/ThornappleRiverRailSeries
| 8K832d7tNmiQ wrote:
| As someone who has a similar usage rate (~6 hours per day),
| most of the time I just play any video podcasts that looks
| interesting and put it either on a background or on my second
| monitor.
| sibit wrote:
| As someone who uses YouTube for ~12 hours a day and has been
| paying for Premium since it was first offered (as YouTube
| Red) here is what I do:
|
| - Listen to / watch podcast (2 - 4 hours)
|
| - Watch videos from a handful of creators like Linus Tech
| Tips or Tom Scott (3 hours)
|
| - Listen / watch various conference talks (1 - 2 hours)
|
| - Listen to music (~6 hours)
| dpweb wrote:
| That's about how I use it. Don't really need/use other
| services except I do need Netflix for the Seinfeld
| episodes. YT Premium is my only must have subscription.
|
| See that's where I think YouTube dropped the ball if they
| had got some of that popular content instead of funding new
| creators.
| SomewhatLikely wrote:
| I also tend to watch a lot of YT. Here's some of my
| subscriptions:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/YannicKilcher - deep learning paper
| summaries
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/tested - Adam Savage's Tested,
| learn about making
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/smartereveryday - Learning about
| science/engineering
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/BadFaithPodcast - podcast about
| social issues
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/aragusea - Cooking, most similar
| to Alton Brown's Good Eats
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/Wendoverproductions - How
| transportation tech and geopolitics work
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/VisualPolitikEN - Geopolitics
| explanations
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/TechnologyConnections - How devices
| work
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEngineering - Engineering
| explanations
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/Freakinreviews Reviews of As-seen-
| on-tv type products
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/3blue1brown - Intuitive/visual
| explanations of math
|
| Beyond that I have various hobbies I follow like stocks,
| gardening/hydroponics.
| moneywoes wrote:
| What do you watch?
| WheatM wrote:
| turdnagel wrote:
| Great - now they should lower the price of YouTube Premium to be
| in line with other streaming services.
| benbristow wrote:
| It's mega cheap if you use a VPN in somewhere third-world like
| India and sign up with a card that doesn't charge forex fees.
| You can then disable the VPN permanently.
|
| I pay like 130 rupees a month (PS1.30 GBP) for it. Worth it
| just for no ads on my phone and background playback.
|
| Only 'gripe' is that YouTube Music sometimes pops up with
| random Bollywood/Indian tunes but once you train the alogrithm
| they disappear too (although I use Spotify anyway so it doesn't
| really matter).
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/2/22605455/youtube-premium-l...
| gtirloni wrote:
| YT Premium is cheaper than Netflix where I live. And I use it
| way more than any of the streaming services I have.
| ceras wrote:
| YouTube Premium also includes music streaming, which makes the
| price much more reasonable.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I tried it and it sucks. In music I want high-quality audio,
| or at least the official music video. YouTube Music just
| throws anything at you.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Is it still full of uploads of old 128kbits/s mp3 encoded at
| least 3 times over 20 years with a great slideshow as video?
| ehsankia wrote:
| Nearly any content that was on GPM or any other streaming
| site has full quality audio. The only times it will use the
| Youtube version is if no alternative is found, or if you
| explicitly have the Video toggle set.
|
| Do you have example of content which is found on most other
| streaming sites but uses Youtube video on YTM?
| chaostheory wrote:
| I wish it was separate as it was in the past.
| spiderice wrote:
| Not really. My guess would be most YT Premium users don't
| even use it. I don't. I pay for Premium to remove ads. Them
| throwing in a bunch of additional stuff that I don't use or
| want (but am still required to pay for) doesn't help justify
| the cost at all.
| baud147258 wrote:
| and nothing of value was lost.
| hbn wrote:
| I pay for Premium but I don't think I've ever had a desire to
| watch a YouTube Original. Nor was I really aware from them. I
| guess there's an irony in that the people who are paying and can
| watch the content are also paying to not see ads so they never
| find out about it.
| ehsankia wrote:
| There were a few good ones here and there, like Mind Field or
| Retro Tech, but they all were basically timed exclusives. I
| actually liked the idea of funding more niche Creator-driven
| content like that, aka giving money and production backing to
| creators who had an idea for a bigger project.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Though I have not seen Cobra Kai, I think that was a YouTube
| original.
| Timpy wrote:
| I think the thing that pulls people in to YouTube is
| antithetical to YouTube Originals. If I'm going to spend 40
| minutes on YouTube it's going to be a series of low commitment
| videos anywhere from 4 to 10 minutes long each. If I wanted
| something to watch that was the length of a TV episode I would
| be on Netflix.
| philistine wrote:
| Everybody's YouTube experience is different, but video length
| is not the differentiator. People will watch hour-long videos
| on YouTube without batting an eye. Or stay for 10 minutes.
|
| What is unique about Youtube is that everything is non-
| fiction. When was the last time any Youtube success was
| fictionalized content?
|
| That's what Youtube Originals tried to change, and failed at.
| clintonb wrote:
| > When was the last time any Youtube success was
| fictionalized content?
|
| Cobra Kai seems successful. Unfortunately, YouTube dropped
| it and Netflix picked it up. The irony is that, while
| Google makes a lot of money from ads, its sibling Netflix
| kinda sucked at advertising the show. I didn't know about
| Cobra Kai until it was on Netflix.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > What is unique about Youtube is that everything is non-
| fiction. When was the last time any Youtube success was
| fictionalized content?
|
| "What does the Fox say" is non-fiction?
|
| "Baby Shark" is non-fiction?
|
| "Gangnam Style" is non-fiction?
| watwut wrote:
| > When was the last time any Youtube success was
| fictionalized content?
|
| Today. There is ton of it.
| Timpy wrote:
| You're right, and after two seconds of reflection I
| realized I watch longer videos on YouTube as well. I tried
| summarizing the difference between YouTube and other
| streaming services but it's more nuanced. The part of me
| that strives to be productive feels much better on YouTube,
| although deep down I know it's probably a net loss on my
| productivity. YouTube is great for video essays, tutorials,
| music & music videos, vlogs & video podcasts.
|
| A 40 minute video essay feels insightful, I know that I'm
| really there for the entertainment but I can justify it to
| myself like I'm learning something and that makes me feel
| good. The things that I categorize as "mindless
| entertainment" are short and low commitment; I don't feel
| bad watching a 3 minute comedy sketch. When YouTube was
| trying to push Cobra Kai on me I thought, "that is not how
| I want to spend the next 30 minutes," then I wasted the
| next 30 minutes anyways on mindless entertainment with a
| series of 3-4 minute videos.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Depends on your definition of fiction I guess. Comedy
| sketches are fiction right? Youtube has been known for
| comedy channels. Then there are channels dedicated to
| fiction franchises. Does a channel that only talks about
| Star Wars count as fiction? I dunno.
|
| YouTube is definitely lacking in the traditional "TV show"
| department if that's what you mean.
| mandernt wrote:
| I strongly disagree. I watch a lot of long form, in-depth
| videos on YouTube.
| dmix wrote:
| Same I pay premium and had no idea Youtube Originals existed.
| At the same time I doubt its a failure of marketing in such a
| saturated market and all the other crap they already offer.
| scantron4 wrote:
| Click the tab, laugh at the idea that anything about this
| page is anything I would want to watch, click away.
| kevincox wrote:
| I remember when they were Premium-only. It was so confusing. I
| subscribed for YouTube but I am being pushed to watch this
| content which I can't share, can't comment on. I can't even get
| email notifications because they aren't regular videos.
|
| I am paying for Premium because I like YouTube but don't want
| ads! Stop trying to do something different. If I wanted that I
| would be paying for Netflix.
| mdoms wrote:
| Like most efforts from Google, YTO was half-hearted and destined
| to fail. The same will be true in the very near future for
| Stadia.
| baja_blast wrote:
| I watch more YouTube than any other streaming platform by a wide
| margin, independent creators are able to produce very high
| quality covering obscure niche subjects.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I wonder if Google needs a new CEO and a serious shakeup. Other
| than Cloud, though Google innovates, we just haven't seen any
| huge things come from Google since around 2010.
|
| Stadia - If they're serious about this they should pay 10B for
| Valve and make it so anyone can play any computer game available
| on Steam via Stadia.
|
| Daydream - Bring it back and make it work
|
| Android - Feels like it's stagnating. They need to think of some
| groundbreaking features at this point
|
| WearOS - Feels dead already
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| At this point even their Cloud Platform is very hard to
| recommend for projects. Sure it seems to be doing really well,
| but who knows: what if the "launch the product - kill the
| product" disease spreads into Google's Cloud division?
| silisili wrote:
| > If they're serious about this they should pay 10B for Valve
| and make it so anyone can play any computer game available on
| Steam via Stadia.
|
| Won't work. Geforce Now essentially tried this, and many
| publishers/gamedevs threw a big fit and threatened legal
| action. Unfortunately, GFN caved and removed the games.
| mdoms wrote:
| > Stadia - If they're serious about this they should pay 10B
| for Valve and make it so anyone can play any computer game
| available on Steam via Stadia.
|
| Valve does not own the rights to every video game on Steam.
| endisneigh wrote:
| A hypothetical Google-Valve doesn't need to necessarily own
| all of the rights to every game in order to allow people to
| play the game via Stadia.
| spiderice wrote:
| How do you figure? Netflix can't show movies they don't
| have the right to. Why would streaming Video Games be any
| different?
| endisneigh wrote:
| There's precedent either way:
|
| Publishers abandoned GeForce now for reasons around
| licensing, but Apple made digital asset usage mainstream
| with the original iPod.
|
| More recently Google allows you to upload and read your
| own books on play books and your own music to YouTube
| music. Game publishers would bicker for sure, but there's
| no reason Google couldn't argue that you're purchasing a
| cloud hard drive and it's mounted to the closest compute
| aka stadia
|
| It really could go either way.
| packetlost wrote:
| Because the user has to own rights to use the content.
| Stadia is selling hardware, not the games itself in this
| hypothetical scenario. Also, see GeForce Now.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Be serious. Everything ML/AI at Google post-dates 2010,
| including 4 generations of TPUs. You have made the common
| mistake of believing that Google's products are the things in
| the hamburger menu, but Google's actual product is dirt-cheap
| computing.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Even by this definition Google isn't the cheapest nor the
| most available in that time period. Even you're claiming
| Google's _actual_ product is dirt cheap computing then they
| 're failing by price, market capture percentage and breadth
| of offerings.
| dekhn wrote:
| No. Early google had several machine learning systems
| including Phil, RePhil, SERI, SmartAss (which made google
| many billions before 2010), and Sibyl all of which predate
| 2010.
|
| Rephil: https://www.quora.com/How-does-Googles-topic-model-
| Rephil-wo... and 26.5.4 Case study: Google's Rephil 928 from
| Kevin Murphy's ML book.
|
| Rephil was critical for google when they needed to cluster
| topics and it was used for a wide range of other things.
|
| Smartass: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.
| google.co...
|
| Smartass is really weird if you come from the "batch training
| of deep networks" world, because it's online, and visits the
| dataset once, in temporal order. But. it's as ML as it gets;
| it was just turning joined clicks (between search queries and
| ad impressions) into weights for pCTR.
|
| Sibyl was Google's secret sauce before tensorflow started in
| 2007, it implemented parallel boosting using mapreduce as a
| worker engine to do linear and logistic regression and was
| used to train the models for youtube watch next and play
| store (both of which produced enormous revenue at a time when
| people had no idea that youtube and android were gold mines)
| but predated those uses by at least 5 years. It was one of
| the oddest systems I've ever worked on and you can see some
| of the ideas it innovated in TFX today.
|
| There's also SETI which IIRC even predated Sibyl, and you
| still can see vestiges of its functionality when doing
| archeological work on the google codebase.
|
| I worked on systems related to smartass, worked on sibyl, and
| later tensorflow/TPU hardware/software. I met a number of
| long-time engineers and asked them deep questions about ML
| use at Google predating tensorflow and gained a deep
| understanding (and even then, I've left out many details
| about systems I'm not aware of). Before tensorflow there
| wasn't much use of GPUs or TPUs, for several reasons but once
| Vincent Vanhouke stuffed a few GPUs in his workstation and
| showed fast training to Jeff Dean, that changed quickly.
| acdha wrote:
| ML/AI is definitely big but they're not really changing the
| world with it. Adding it to Photos has been nice but hardly
| critical (search is handy but "enhancements" just meant I had
| figure out how to disable it) and adding it to Search has
| been at best neutral. GCP has some good stuff but it's not
| especially compelling compared to the alternatives which have
| more features.
|
| I wouldn't be as negative as the original poster but they do
| seem poorly led and that's hurting them. Even GCP gets hit
| with C-level concern that "Google kills products" and their
| sales team has been under-motivated in my experience.
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| Whilst I can agree everyone has a price, Valve is bootstrapped
| for a reason.
|
| Not necessarily you can buy out anyone by the sheer power of
| money. Buy out Valve and you'll destroy its creative freedom
| that got them there in the first place.
| eropple wrote:
| _> Buy out Valve and you 'll destroy its creative freedom
| that got them there in the first place._
|
| I don't think an acquisition by Google would have anything to
| do with Valve's "creative freedom"--the evidence of which has
| been pretty scant for the last decade or so. ;) More for the
| storefront and the platform.
|
| (I absolutely do not want this to happen, obviously.)
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| No one wants that to happen, and I think Valve's asking
| price would be in hundreds of millions of dollars - given
| the recent Activision price tag.
| jwin742 wrote:
| Valve is certainly a multi-billion dollar acquisition
| simply from owning steam the largest marketplace for
| PC(and mac and linux) gaming.
| neon_electro wrote:
| It's amazing to say it - you meant "billions", not
| "millions". :D Prices are astronomical!
| [deleted]
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| .. and good morning! it's going to be yet another perfect day
| without YouTube TV!
|
| Because who knows the over-under on when they cancel that, too?
| andai wrote:
| Never heard of it, apparently it's a US only thing.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Never made sense to me and made me suspect that the people in
| charge didn't understand the value of their own platform.
|
| YouTube isn't competing with Netflix/Disney+/etc, they are the
| ones competing with YouTube and the idea of infinite hyper
| specialized crowdsourced content which is most personal and
| intimate than anything they could ever offer.
|
| Makes perfect sense to kill it.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I do wonder why Netflix hasn't opened a 'crowdsourced' section
| to actually compete with youtube, I'm sure they're making more
| per viewer than Youtube so affording the necessary server space
| shouldn't be the issue. I know they don't like to go into too
| many new market segments but it seems like an obvious move...
| anyone have a theory?
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I agree that all these other companies are competing with
| YouTube. I mean like you said... there is tons of original
| content on YouTube that would never get made via "mainstream" /
| "traditional" producers.
|
| Take all the FPV train videos made by train engineers on their
| routes. Or the dudes who sit around at popular inlets in
| Florida recording lake boats attempting (and often failing) to
| go into open ocean. Or the person who does ASMR car detailing.
| Or the dude on Australia who jets out plugged drains. Or the
| people who live stream airplanes landing at LAX for 10 hours.
|
| Nobody would ever put that onto a cable TV channel yet each of
| these content creators have a loyal audience that at minimum
| funds a hefty beer fund.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I think the idea of Origins was to give their most popular
| creators some extra resources to undertake a bigger project
| than usual. For example, MKBHD's Retro Tech is very much in
| line with his tech videos, or Vsauce's Mind Field is basically
| a high production version of his normal videos.
|
| That being said, these creators already get a ton of views to
| start with, and as cool as the highly produced content was, I
| don't think it realistically brought more views than the normal
| videos.
| nostromo wrote:
| I believe we're in a content bubble.
|
| All the old television networks, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple,
| and others are pumping out more mediocre TV than anyone wants or
| cares to consume. The quality is too low and the quantity is too
| high.
|
| It's telling to me that the most-watched shows on these networks
| are often sitcoms from the 90s and 00s, despite a mountain of
| newer content going unnoticed.
|
| A shakeout would be a good thing.
| omegalulw wrote:
| Pretty much. I can't remember the last time I opened Netflix
| and didn't struggle to find something to watch.
|
| That said, I think more and more people are realizing this so
| I'm hopeful things would improve. For example, one of the most
| underrated streaming services IMO is HBO Max - they don't have
| a lot of content but the quality of of what they have is pretty
| good.
| golergka wrote:
| May be it's just more people viewing his own thing, instead of
| the whole audience running to the number one show? The long
| tail?
| ehsankia wrote:
| Exactly, GP is mistaking niche content with mediocre content.
| It's similar to indie games. A game like The Witness may not
| have the same audience as the latest Call of Duty, but the
| people who love that game really fucking love it.
|
| When any field gets too saturated, the best way to shine is
| to focus on underserved niches.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I find that many times that people complain about lack of
| good content, they aren't willing to get a least a bit out
| of their comfort zone and try something different. Netflix
| (and others) have shows and movies from so many countries,
| so many genres.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I disagree. There are still massive and popular shows. Look at
| Marvel shows, Ted Lasso, The Crown, etc. But since the field is
| saturated, there's also a focus on niche content that appeal to
| a specific underserved population. Content that have a small
| but strong fanbase. Just because it doesn't appeal to you
| doesn't mean it's mediocre.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This keeps happening in every space. A barrier to entry is
| lowered, everybody cheers, and pretty soon we are awash in
| absolute garbage.
|
| Less is more.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I think you're onto something but from the wrong angle.
| Netflix/Amazon/Hulu are paying these content creators up-front
| to be create these shows with no added payoff if the show ends
| up being a huge hit. There's then no incentive for the creators
| to put any extra effort into making the show since they won't
| get rewarded for it. Of course, this is all hypothesis and
| there are certainly counterexamples that can be brought up.
|
| Now, I think these creators are banking their effort/ideas in
| the hopes that theaters will make a comeback at some point.
| However, at some point it will become clear that theaters are
| dead and that there will need to be a new business model (or
| acceptance of the current model) that creators will simply need
| to accept.
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| > There's then no incentive for the creators to put any extra
| effort into making the show since they won't get rewarded for
| it.
|
| This seems flaws logic. Many people have pride in their work
| regardless. And even if selfish reasoning they know a hit
| gets renewed season or goes on their resume for better future
| earnings.
| Hokusai wrote:
| > Many people have pride in their work regardless.
|
| On my experience, the only reason the world works is
| because many people has pride in their jobs and go beyond
| their pay grade to make things work. And rarely are the
| better paid as they are more worried about good results
| that better pay for themselves. When I find people like
| that I try to help them as a sign of gratitude.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| >payoff if the show ends up being a huge hit
|
| They get to charge more (or determine if it even exists) for
| season 2+ if it is a huge hit.
|
| Also for a lot of Netflix's original content it is licensing
| streaming rights, not full ownership. I have seen news
| reports that they own 10% or less of their "Netflix
| Originals". So merchandising rights remain with the original
| owners\creators of the content.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| I think we're in a subscription bubble. I don't consume enough
| content per month to make most of these subscriptions
| worthwhile- only YT Premium and Spotify to skip the ads. Yet
| when there is something I want to watch, I have to subscribe to
| a massive bundle of garbage for month to see it.
| pictur wrote:
| now there are TV shows and movies that only have message
| concerns. quality content no longer really exists. netflix has
| lowered the quality bar a lot
| [deleted]
| WheatM wrote:
| unexpected wrote:
| I would like to offer a more nuanced spin - there's a large
| quantity of great, original content out there, but the era of
| the sitcom is over. We're in peak prestige tv - every new show
| requires you to have watched the whole season and requires a
| big time commitment and emotional investment (game of thrones
| being the quintessential example of this).
|
| ...yet the last few years have been quite hard! All of us are
| navigating a COVID environment where working remotely,
| educating kids, and entertaining ourselves have all blended
| together. There's a bifurcation of eyeballs - I simply don't
| have the time or emotional bandwidth to watch "prestige tv",
| but it's very easy for me to put on friends, or the office, or
| seinfeld, and carry on with my day!
| [deleted]
| sfifs wrote:
| Are you sure you are not judging by the standards of mass
| market ad supported broadcast production vs what these
| companies seem to be doing in terms of producing content for
| long tail of smaller but still profitable subscription interest
| based target audiences?
|
| In the broadcast world, the relevant "inventory" (ie. TV
| Network Channel time slot) is very limited. Therefore only
| content with production quality that appeals to a large enough
| audience to attract advertisers gets greenlit. There's no such
| limitations in subscription supposed the digital content
| delivery (aka OTT) economic model. You only have to get
| sufficient audience to at least recoup your production costs
| and the minimal per stream delivery costs.
|
| In the past year, my family has binge watched "blown away" a
| glass blowing competition, 3 series about weird/exotic vacation
| rentals/hotels, 2 children's mysteries serises, standup comedy
| by specific comediens, a series about music production and
| composition styles of different artists and a series about
| design. All of these above ran multiple seasons, so clearly
| there's sufficient profitable viewership for multiple seasons
| to be made even though it's very likely NONE of them would make
| mainstream broadcast TV. We didn't see any of the "big/popular"
| shows which do make it to broadcast TV. I'm very sure there are
| enough households like mine that drives multiple seasons of the
| above "niche" shows.
|
| The only reason we have cable / broadcast TV connection at all
| now is when my parents or in-laws visit, they get very bored
| without their regular TV channels.
| autokad wrote:
| this 'long tail' discussion has been a huge fallacy. if you
| look at the type of content netflix is trying to produce, its
| really not that diverse. its mostly very left leaning
| dystopian. They also operate very much like a broadcast TV
| station in the way they cancel shows very fast despite not
| having limits of airtime slots.
|
| while you site a few cherry picked series that lasted a few
| years, netflix is really quick to cancel shows. Honestly the
| original content Netflix spits out has less diversity than
| broad cast tv, and they have about as much patience to keep
| those shows 'on the air'.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Making shows cost money, and opportunity costs for the
| actors. When a Netflix show is cancelled they don't delete
| it, you can still watch the existing episodes unlike
| broadcast TV.
| watwut wrote:
| Ending shows is better then milking the same show ad
| infinity.
| notafraudster wrote:
| Netflix is not especially quick to cancel shows. The modal
| broadcast show got 1 season pretty consistently during the
| entire broadcast era. Most years the first cancelled
| broadcast show occurs after 1-2 episodes have aired.
| Netflix does tend to leave shows with fewer episodes than
| traditional broadcast runs because the new norm is 8-10
| episodes per season rather than 22-26; this has been
| reflected in significantly higher per-episode budgets, a
| much broader and deeper talent pool on screen, and a move
| towards serialized storytelling that started with HBO.
|
| Netflix actually has extremely diverse programming on all
| levels. By genre, by budget, by language, by subject
| matter, by age rating, by quality, Netflix covers
| absolutely every quadrant.
|
| What is "left leaning dystopian"? Never mind, I don't want
| to know. It's embarrassing.
| watwut wrote:
| I can't help ... series are better then they ever been. And
| while I hate superheroes comic book movie genre with passion,
| many people love that.
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| Great content is x% of all content. If you want more great
| shows, the industry will need to make a ton of shows and most
| won't be great. We've had a decade of really amazing tv, it's
| no wonder there is some mediocre work in there too. We also
| just spent 2 years in semi-lockdown, it's hard to make movies
| and tv in that situation, there were a lot of delayed great
| projects
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > We've had a decade of really amazing tv, it's no wonder
| there is some mediocre work in there too.
|
| Agree. We remember the good shows from the previous decades,
| but there was a lot of thrash
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| That's making some unfounded assumptions.
|
| Good content is not a fixed % of total. So if you increase
| total you might just water down the % of good content... Or
| worse, if practices focus on quantity entirely you may end up
| with 0% good content.
|
| Even shows I used to enjoy seem to have taken a steep decline
| since about 2018.
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| It's not one person on a throne making decisions for the
| entire industry. Many different organizations are all
| making tv shows and movies, so you tend to get a mix even
| if the large companies focus on bad content
|
| The things in decline imho are due to studios taking their
| best people off the project to kick start new ones
| schleck8 wrote:
| There is a great video on why many of the streaming providers
| have started airing "trash tv"/reality tv shows. It's in
| German, but you can auto translate subtitles on PC
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=nD5YLLPpWMg
| cletus wrote:
| The part I agree with is many companies are throwing huge
| amounts of money at original content creation and some of these
| will get burned. The poster child for this (IMHO) is Netflix
| who has spent so much on this that they've had to raise prices
| to untenable levels, which is hurting retention in the US and
| Canada in particular.
|
| I disagree with your claim about people are primarily watching
| old content (source?). Just looking at one list for Netflix
| [1], it's all fairly recent shows with the notable exception of
| Seinfeld. It's actually astounding what a money-making machine
| Seinfeld is 25 years after being on the air. Even before
| streaming, Seinfeld reruns would get >1m viewers on cable. It's
| crazy.
|
| I actually believe the last 20 years have been (and seemingly
| continue to be) the golden age of television. Technology
| finally made practical heavily serialized content and TV
| enables types of content not possible in movies. Movies are
| just limited to ~3 hours in length (director's cuts of Dances
| with Wolves notwithstanding). Movies are for short stories. TV
| is for books.
|
| This is a structural change in the industry and despite the Big
| Brother-esque mediocrity we've also seen over this period, it's
| undeniable that we've seen some of the greatest entertainment
| ever to grace a screen in the last 20 years.
|
| [1]: https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/tv-ratings-seinfeld-you-
| squ...
| nostromo wrote:
| > I disagree with your claim about people are primarily
| watching old content (source?).
|
| I realize this is just one data point, but the most-streamed
| show in 2020 was The Office, close to a decade after its last
| episode was released.
|
| https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/the-office-most-
| stream...
| pixl97 wrote:
| Could we be conflating causality here? Could it be that
| older shows that existed before networks were fractured up
| by separate streaming services are going to be the most
| watched now because they were also the most watched then.
| The last shared societal interactions. Maybe these shows
| were not particularly good, but there was a lack of options
| individualized so strongly.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Actually I think it's about finding your niche.
|
| I loved Disjointed on Netflix, but I understand it's too silly
| for many. If I want to find Ukrainian rom coms,I can find it .
|
| This was unheard of 20 years ago.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > If I want to find Ukrainian rom coms,I can find it
|
| Now you got me curious
| pille wrote:
| > It's telling to me that the most-watched shows on these
| networks are often sitcoms from the 90s and 00s, despite a
| mountain of newer content going unnoticed.
|
| There was also huge glut of forgettable content back then. Most
| 90s and 00s shows were low quality crap too. No one is watching
| those now. The handful of shows that survived and made it onto
| today's streaming services are the greatest of that era.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Nobody remembers Capital Critters, Fish Police, or Family
| Dog.
| ozzythecat wrote:
| > All the old television networks, Netflix, Amazon, Disney,
| Apple, and others are pumping out more mediocre
|
| This is a subjective statement. You might even dislike shows on
| a particular service, but to say all of them are "objectively
| bad" and you think people watch more of "90s sitcoms" tells me
| that you probably prefer 90s sitcoms. :)
|
| I'm basically cycling between these providers each month. The
| Expanse, The Morning Show, Hawkeye, Succession, For All
| Mankind.
|
| Last year was the most television I've watched since I was a
| kid.
| nostromo wrote:
| I don't actually watch those shows - I watched them a long
| time ago.
|
| I've just noticed that for many years, Netflix would show
| that their most-watched show was The Office. And I'm sitting
| here thinking -- all of this new content and the thing people
| are watching is over a decade old?
|
| South Park, Family Guy, Friends, Sienfield... I've seen these
| promoted by multiple services as the most-watched shows
| available.
| numpad0 wrote:
| People prefers to watch videos of normal people doing
| normal people things over everything else? I can't laugh at
| my straw man either but that is horrifying.
| potatolicious wrote:
| It also sounds like a case of rose-tinted glasses - I watched
| many of those 90s sitcoms as they came out, and most of them
| are _definitely_ mediocre!
|
| And this fact was noticed contemporaneously - remember all of
| the very serious thinkpieces opining that people were rotting
| their brains in front of the TV watching content so brain-
| dead that you need a laughtrack to tell the audience when to
| laugh.
|
| Personally I think that was just snobbery - the mediocre
| sitcoms were fine and perfectly ok entertainment and there
| was no need for any kind of moral panic - but let's not
| pretend that that was some kind of golden age of
| sophisticated content.
| varelse wrote:
| It's a golden age to me and I don't know how long it will last.
| But I'm all there for the spin-off shows that would have once
| been fanfic on Usenet and little more. Have you seen
| Peacemaker? It's utterly amazing and I'm happy to wade through
| oceans of crap to get to gems like this. I am genuinely
| beginning to wonder if James Gunn made The Suicide Squad sequel
| so he could make a TV series out of Peacemaker.
| sfifs wrote:
| Are you sure you are not judging by the standards of mass
| market broadcast production vs what these companies seem to be
| doing in terms of producing content for smaller, more targeted
| but still profitable target audiences?
|
| In the broadcast world, the relevant "inventory" (ie. TV
| Network Channel time slot) is very limited and precious.
| Therefore only content with production quality that appeals to
| a large enough audience to attract advertisers gets greenlit.
|
| In the past year, my family has binge watched "blown away" a
| glass blowing competition, 3 series about weird/exotic vacation
| rentals/hotels, 2 children's mysteries serises, standup comedy
| by specific comediens, a series about music production and
| composition styles of different artists and a series about
| design. All of these above ran multiple seasons, so clearly
| there's sufficient profitable viewership for multiple seasons
| to be made even though it's very likely NONE of them would make
| mainstream broadcast TV. We didn't see any of the "big/popular"
| shows.
|
| The only reason we have cable TV connection at all now is when
| my parents or in-laws visit, they get very bored without
| their.regular TV channels.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I don't think we are. I agree the the amount of just okay
| content that is being released seems overwhelming. But people
| are watching it. And its more targeted to specific
| demographics. I have friends who love X netflix show because
| its the first time someone like the is the actual target
| audience and that is reflected by the show. I don't love the
| show and that is okay because I'm not who they are trying to
| reach.
|
| I realized as a 20-50 middle income white guy I was the target
| demographic for 90%+ of the shows on television. Even if I
| thought X new sitcom was garbage at least I could relate to it.
| Now that isnt true so that show probably seems even less
| appealing than it did before.
|
| So I just dont watch it. That's fine. And once in a while a
| squid games, BEHIND HER EYES, or damn it even love is blind
| pops up and I get to enjoy bingeing a show with family/friends.
| More content is coming out and it is more targeted. Those that
| are hits get renewed and those that flop dont. It's the same
| system as always but more targeted.
| rchaud wrote:
| Too few of these shows last long enough for them to generate
| future value via syndication. Networks will buy a one-off
| movie, but not a single 10-episode season of something for a
| very niche audience.
| jjulius wrote:
| >Too few of these shows last long enough for them to
| generate future value via syndication.
|
| Forgive my ignorance, but is syndication even relevant to
| many of these shows/networks anymore, now that you can just
| drop something onto a streaming service and leave it there
| in perpetuity?
| da_chicken wrote:
| It _ought_ to be. The whole problem right now is that
| broadcasters and content producers are the same thing.
| Content is almost 100% siloed now, and culture will
| fracture because of it. Content streaming should not
| require you to be a content producer. That isn 't a
| competitive marketplace.
|
| Who wants to have Neflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount+,
| HBOMax, Disney+, Hulu, CBS Whatevertheycallit, Peacock
| (NBC), etc., etc., etc., until you're paying $500/mo.?
| They'd love for that to happen, but there's no way.
| Nobody is going to do that.
|
| Every content producer want 100% control and 100%
| profits. They're just going to kill the golden goose.
| watwut wrote:
| That sounds like a competitive marketplace. Syndication
| on the other hand sounds like uniformity
| dasil003 wrote:
| Culture has already fractured, and it's mostly due to
| YouTube/Twitch/TikTok, and not so much about the siloing.
|
| I'm not sure I agree that it's not a competitive
| marketplace though, just look at all the players! What I
| would agree with is that it's not consumer friendly, and
| I agree no one will pay $500/mo, but a lot of people have
| been paying $100-$150 for cable for decades, and for that
| budget you can still get a lot of good stuff without
| needing to get everything.
|
| All that said though, the vertical integration is pretty
| interesting because this is how the movies studios were
| set up in the first half of the twentieth century. They
| owned the production (including actors as highly paid
| indentured servants) and the theaters. It was only in
| 1948 that anti-trust action was taken to force them to
| divest theaters. That's super interesting because it's
| hard to imagine that type of anti-trust action today.
| rchaud wrote:
| Putting a show on your own streaming network only means
| forgoing the extra income that could be earned by selling
| non-exclusive broadcast rights to someone else. There are
| hundreds if not thousands of cable TV channels around the
| world, and they all need to purchase programming from
| someone.
|
| Take the sitcom Frasier (1993-2004). It is streaming
| exclusively on Peacock in the US, but they can still sell
| the broadcast rights to networks around the world. So in
| the UK, Frasier episodes are shown daily on Channel 4 in
| the mornings. That's an extra revenue stream right there,
| and it doesn't cannibalize Peacock as it doesn't operate
| in the UK.
| Postosuchus wrote:
| Frasier has just been made available on VUDU.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| A future streaming service will pick up the good ones. The
| benefit to killing off traditional syndication is that it
| removes future losses from royalties.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Networks don't pay out royalties for syndicated shows.
|
| The production studio that owns the show pays out the
| royalties, based on the income they receive from the
| channels syndicating the show. (Fox TV, for example, made
| Modern Family, which aired on ABC. Fox TV pays out the
| royalties received from the channels that syndicate
| reruns of the show, not ABC.)
| soco wrote:
| I'm actually wondering what is the future of those networks
| anyway...
| echelon wrote:
| >> I believe we're in a content bubble.
|
| > I don't think we are. I agree the the amount of just okay
| content that is being released seems overwhelming.
|
| Agree.
|
| It's a search space problem. If there was a perfect amount of
| ideal content, everyone would be glued to their screens 24/7.
|
| Large and medium budget projects come in two forms:
|
| - Easy win tentpole features. Marvel, Star Wars. Typically
| generic and bland (though they don't have to be) that can
| attract lots of eyeballs and starve your competition.
|
| - Bold bets that garner attention by surprise. These surface
| the unknown or unmet interests of a broad number of
| consumers. Stranger Things (80's nostalgia and horror
| fantasy), Squid Game (Battle Royale / Hunger Games still has
| gas).
|
| Netfix is trying to find a lot of the second category by
| firing shots into search space. It's producing mixed results,
| which should be expected. Unfortunately they can't slow down
| yet, because their third party content libraries are drying
| up.
|
| The problem is that it's all too expensive. Difficult and
| costly to make, and too many things that can go wrong and
| turn any good project into something that sucks. Everything
| has to be perfect.
|
| Netflix can afford to do more curation in the future once
| consolidation has happened. Perhaps buying NBC, CBS, or the
| new Discovery could give them some breathing room.
| tyingq wrote:
| I agree. There's a ton of stuff where either the acting or
| writing makes it unwatchable. Or potentially good foreign (to
| me) language content where the quality of the dubbing and/or
| english captions make it useless to me. There is clearly a
| quantity > quality thing going on.
|
| It also hides some of the good stuff because you can't
| typically filter, sort, or search based on things like reviews.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Couldn't it just be that media from those times were less
| fragmented, and everyone who watches modern stuff just happens
| to watch different things?
| didip wrote:
| Is this statement true? I don't watch a lot of entertainment
| myself, but even I have heard of The Squid Game drama on
| Netflix. And that counts as a new content.
| rg111 wrote:
| They have algorithmized TV production.
|
| They collect shit-ton of data on everything of the users, and
| track eyeballs (not literally, I think)- what are people
| watching, what are people binging, etc.
|
| They are forming clusters of users based on demographic,
| purchase power, etc, and mapping those clusters to features in
| content.
|
| And if a certain overall kind or discreet feature is worth the
| amount of eyeball it is attracting, a _designed_ , soulless
| series gets created with those features, or two.
|
| This is what modern, app-TV feels to me. No art, no quality.
| Just content tailor-made and factory produced to match the
| taste of favored demographics with purchase power. And they not
| only want to match. They want to _maximize_.
|
| They want the maximum amount of people to watch something, not
| small amounts of people finding their niche.
|
| I cannot tolerate this kind of content, and I am unsubscribed
| to all services except Amazon Prime for free delivery of goods.
|
| That doesn't mean there aren't _some_ good TV. I would consider
| Bosch to be quality TV, and Ozark is okay-ish. The Expanse,
| too.
|
| But I am done with conveyor-belt driven app-TV.
|
| I will just binge The Wire when I am sick. Thank you.
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| "Tracking eyeballs, what a joke!"
|
| Reed Hastings was furious after that call ended. Conversation
| still ringed in his ears. Another journalist implying how bad
| tech giants exploit the data, "spy" (gasp!) on customers.
|
| He opened the cabinet, took a whiskey bottle, and poured
| single malt into a heavy glass. His office was quiet again,
| anger subsided, and he was finally able to relax. Today's
| call was fourth this week, maybe fifth. For the past couple
| of month all the media was hunting for were stories on ad
| targeting, behavior tracking, privacy breach...
|
| Everyone and their dog implied that there is full-on spying
| on every single customer to drive the views. People who had
| no idea how this worked, who invested zero hours into
| building something meaningful, while spending all their life
| magnifying the rage through social media.
|
| "I wonder if there is a trendy hashtag already, something
| like #trackingate?" -- Mr. Reed caught himself spiraling
| again into the unpleasant memories of his latest
| conversations with the press. Poor fellas haven't been able
| to scratch even the surface of how it all works.
|
| "You don't need to track _every_ eyeball. Just a select few
| of them. Carefully selected." Mr. Reed smirked, eyed a
| precious glass jar filled with white jelly marbles, and
| closed the cabinet door.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Games are going the same route.. It feels rare that you get a
| unique game with complex mechanics.. All of them are dumped
| down to make them easier..
| some-guy wrote:
| I think this is a bit of an overgeneralization. There is
| _plenty_ of media (movies, television, music) that came out
| over the years that was absolutely terrible. Networks at the
| time also were very data-driven with their decisions, they
| just didn't have as much data to work with.
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| Pop music, Hollywood movies, and book publishing have done
| this for years. There is just more data than before. It is
| about as soulless as it ever was, but maybe less so: there
| have been some great shows in the last decade (not as many
| great movies though)
| terafo wrote:
| What's great about this amount of content being produced is the
| globalization of content production. The biggest hit of last
| year was made in Korea. More and more shows on Netflix are
| being made globally. It will become more prevalent as various
| streaming services try to get an edge over competition by
| cutting costs this way.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| About time. They murdered it in spirit years ago.
| sneak wrote:
| It's not news that Google killed a product, or that any big tech
| company killed an unsuccessful new division after a few years of
| trial-and-mostly-error.
|
| What's news is Google's hitrate at developing new divisions into
| successful lines of business. It must be a small fraction of that
| of Amazon's hit rate.
|
| Google's largest successes have been acquisitions, too. Amazon
| seems to have developed a lot of huge businesses internally, from
| scratch.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I'll take "Acquisitions that Google ran into the ground" for
| $800, Alex.
|
| Answer: They used to be the leading restaurant review book,
| pre-internet. Google bought it in 2011, and has now sold it
| off.
|
| Question: what is Zagat?
|
| Let's continue for $1,000.
|
| Answer: This Schaumburg, IL company was a pioneer in
| electronics before the smartphone era. Google paid $12.5
| billion for a division of it in 2012, and has now sold it off.
|
| Question: What is Motorola?
| rchaud wrote:
| They bought Motorola for the patents IIRC. Those weren't
| transferred when they sold it to Lenovo.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| You do remember correctly. I was in Google Patent
| Litigation then.
|
| The patents were never asserted against anyone. Were they
| useful as leverage in cross-licensing deals? No, not
| particularly.
|
| Since patent infringement suits are generally brought
| against the final manufacturer of the hardware, what this
| did is make Google the defendant in a lot of lawsuits
| against Motorola.
|
| I personally looked over all 20K+ Google patents (mostly
| via our summary tools, not reading every word). Most of the
| Motorola ones were utterly worthless.
| the-rc wrote:
| Wasn't the interlaced video patent asserted against
| Microsoft, along with a bunch of other H264 stuff?
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Was it? When was that?
| rchaud wrote:
| Wouldn't Motorola have a lot of patents related to
| networking and telecoms infrastructure? Similar to what
| companies like Nokia and Ericsson had? Wouldn't those be
| valuable for Google to hang on to?
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| The silliest thing was that they sold phone manufacturing
| branch to Lenovo only to decide they want to build phones
| in-house, and they bought a phone division from HTC in
| 2017.
| ortusdux wrote:
| https://killedbygoogle.com/
| curiousgal wrote:
| Android is on its way to that list judging by how bad Android
| 12 is.
| rchaud wrote:
| I often think about just how much more dominant iOS would
| have been had Samsung not come in to save Android. They
| introduced better cameras, capacitive pen-enabled phones, DEX
| desktop enviroments and now foldables.
|
| Having owned several Nexus devices due to their rootability,
| it's remarkable how much better the comparable Samsung models
| were.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Samsung's hardware definitely kept Android relevant. I'd
| even argue that Samsung's software did too. Samsung has
| been adding new features to their flavor of Android since
| the beginning. Some good, some bad. Things like multi-
| window, do-not-disturb, UX improvements, etc. It really
| came from Samsung competing with LG, HTC, Moto, etc to keep
| their flavor ahead. Each year Google would integrate those
| features into stock Android as if it were a big deal. But
| to most users it wasn't because it already existed for
| them. Now it's stagnating on all sides and everyone's
| looking towards Apple on what to do next.
| remram wrote:
| The "switch app" button randomly stopping to work every few
| days, on a flagship Pixel phone... is a bit of a bad sign to
| say the least. But I don't think Google would allow Android
| to die, it's too much of an opportunity in that vertical.
| randomsilence wrote:
| Do they have the internal culture to maintain the code
| base? If their hiring process fills their ranks with people
| who are good at coding interviews, would that be enough to
| maintain the Android platform?
| brimble wrote:
| The nuts-and-bolts of Android--the stuff that doesn't
| make for a really pretty and flashy yet-another-redesign
| announcements--has felt badly neglected since I started
| using and developing for it over a decade ago. Google
| seems to be terrible at getting its workforce to do the
| _mountain_ of boring-but-useful work that needs to happen
| to make Android suck less. Instead, we get yet another
| widget redesign (with most of the actual implementation
| left up to app developers--oh you didn 't think any of
| that pretty stuff would just _work_ , did you? Hahaha,
| making it work is boring, you silly person!) and ten more
| messengers (product launches = promotions, don't you
| know!)
| Bayart wrote:
| Google has been working on another OS, Fuchsia [1], for 6
| years. That may be where the system developers went.
|
| [1]: https://fuchsia.dev
| erichocean wrote:
| Certainly you'd hope that's where Google's _best_ system
| developers went, and Android is currently being
| maintained by their B team.
| adingus wrote:
| I have been an Android user since the iPhone 3g and I have
| never considered moving back or to something else until
| Android 12. More and more it feel like Android is getting in
| the way. The app drawer/recent app swipe up is annoying and
| confusing, I can't do simple things like setting a timer via
| text unless the assistant is turned on, the driving mode is
| trash etc. I am really thinking of buying a pinephone pro and
| trying my hand at that.
| detritus wrote:
| At this point one would really have to wonder if it's at all
| worthwhile investing time and effort in a Google-based product.
|
| Heck, they even appear to have let their main offering - their
| Search Engine - slip into shit over the past few years.
| ehsankia wrote:
| How is Originals a "Google-based product"? It really
| irritates me how every tiny feature being removed is used to
| inflate the killedbygoogle-meme. Just like how there are
| lists claiming Google Maps is a "chat app". Can we stop with
| this nonsense? Soon killedbygoogle will start listing
| individual <span> elements that were removed from google
| websites.
|
| Originals was a feature; features come and go all the time.
| thelopa wrote:
| Tell that to the creators who were using Originals as a
| revenue stream. If the point of killedbygoogle is that
| google isn't a reliable platform to build on, this
| absolutely seems like a fair thing to add to the list.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Those creators were and will continue to make normal
| Youtube videos.
|
| The only thing with Originals did was provide them with
| resources to make slightly higher production value
| content, but it seems like said content didn't perform as
| well as the creators own content.
|
| The creators are still free to find their own production
| company and produce similarly polished high production
| content if they want, but again, I doubt that content is
| worth it on a platform like Youtube.
| smm11 wrote:
| Fubo and sports is The Jam.
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