The death of Netflix
by Samantha Calthrop, Staff Writer
Netflix is the beast of streaming services. That's been a widely-known fact of life since about 2016, when Stranger Things released and cemented Netflix's place in the pecking order. Netflix is now considered a household necessity alongside heating and electricity, and having a Netflix account is now one of the emblems of adulthood, along with a driving licence and a credit card. My brother paid for his ex's Netflix for two years post-breakup. But after Netflix has been at the core of society for so long, is it finally starting to wither?
2022 was a catastrophic year for the company financially. Its stock pretty much plummeted as the pandemic-demand for streaming ended and companies like Disney+ and HBO Max elbowed their way onto the market. 2022 saw Netflix announcing its controversial crackdown on account sharing - which has just been implemented in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain, with wider rollouts to follow. “Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films,” reads a statement by Chengyi Long, the Director of Product Innovation.
The new Netflix pricing plan hopes to address that by charging users for every sharing account outside of the main household, but the investment in great new TV and films has also been on the downwards; Netflix has cancelled large amounts of its programming, including some well-known and well-received shows. Resident Evil, The Baby-Sitters Club, and Dead End: Paranormal Park were all unexpectedly axed, often without the director knowing until the last moment. It's been well-observed that Netflix has been cancelling its animated programming left and right, which is a pretty good sign it's trying to trim off niche, less profitable shows to save money.
Mind you, plenty of original showmakers are struggling to get their film made anywhere, not just Netflix. "It’s never been harder to make originals. But Hollywood keeps forgetting that all those sacred and lucrative IPs were once lowly and risky, all together now, originals," tweeted Jorge R. Gutierrez, director of The Book of Life and Maya and the Three. Creator of Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Craig McCracken has also cited the difficulty of pitching original IPs as the reason he's supported several reboots. When asked if he'd tried pitching original shows instead of reboots, McCracken responded, "I pitched 16 originals to Netflix." Naturally, none of them were picked up.
The streaming powerhouses are, of course, corporations; they're driven by profit, not creativity. But the increased competition from rival streaming services is forcing companies to start shaving content for profit and narrowing their focus, which in the creative industry is usually something that happens before an intense crash in quality and value. Surprisingly, if you stop creators from doing anything non-profitable, you kill originality and eventually start producing only garbage, but apparently Netflix has forgotten that one, because they're mainly dedicated to milking Stranger Things as far as they can.
When I was a kid, we didn't even have Sky; I had to content myself with whatever was on TG4's afternoon programming. Toddlers these days have instant access to every episode of the Pokémon cartoon. (I'm not bitter.) But with increased profit-seeking and the escalating numbers of streaming services out there, how long will it be before the Netflix days end and a new era begins?
Maybe a little longer than it seems. Netflix is still the big boss among streaming services, and a 'reduction in profits' doesn't mean too much when you're still one of the biggest producers out there, and those reduced profits are still happily in the billions. The penny-pinching phase of TV still has a few death throes to get out of its system before reform.
So, in this modern day, what do you do when your favourite shows are spread across five different platforms that all cost more than you have? Easy. Piracy of movies and shows declined in the wake of Netflix's arrival to greatness, but now it's more tempting than ever to just get out there and download what you want for free. Is that harmful to the creators? Maybe a little. But not nearly as much as the industry is.
