Wanna play? Squid Game was the hit Netflix needed. It's second season can't come soon enough for the streamer.
Wanna play? Squid Game was the hit Netflix needed. It's second season can't come soon enough for the streamer.
Opinion by Karl Puschmann
Karl Puschmann is Culture and entertainment writer for the New Zealand Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
Netflix has a problem. Actually, it’s got many. It’s too expensive. The quality of its in-house shows and movies has dropped tremendously. The back catalogue of non-Netflix fare is slow to update. And, to top it all off, it’s lost my trust.
Can it win it back? Does it care to? None of the recent decisions or the direction it’s stomping down would lead me to believe it gives much of a damn. After all, I’m just one dude. Who cares what I think?
Netflix probably should. Because I’m not alone in thinking this. I’m hearing more and more disgruntled grumbles and mumbles of dissatisfaction with the service than at any other point during its tenure in Aotearoa. In its home ground of America it’s been bleeding subscribers. That wound looks to be opening up here as well.
When Netflix launched on our shores in 2015 it was aggressively priced at just $9.99 per month. It entered the market as the cheapest streamer on the box. It came in a whopping $10 less per month than Sky’s Neon and quickly dispatched local, long-forgotten rivals Lightbox and Quickflix, which cost $3 more.
“Netflix’s astoundingly low price point allows me to overlook the catalogue gaps in its film and television offerings,” I wrote in my initial review of the service. “It’s not disappointing by any means, but it’s not quite the no-brainer, slam-dunk many - including myself - predicted it to be.”
How times change. These days, Netflix is very much a brainer. The catalogue gaps haven’t been filled and, after a few price hikes, its standard plan now puts the biggest dent in your wallet at $18.49 per month. Sure, that’s only 50c more than Neon but times are tough and every little counts. Also, Neon has Succession, Yellowjackets and Barry. Netflix has… er… Selling Sunset.
Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler in Netflix's original movie Murder Mystery 2.
Okay, that’s not quite fair. Netflix is also home to Stranger Things, Squid Game and Black Mirror. But with the writers’ strike, who knows when the strange things of the former will conclude, the deathly games will return or the nightmarishly bleak vision of the latter will be back to freak the bejebus out of us?
If Netflix is feeling the heat from Neon, it’s getting burned to a crisp by global competitors Amazon Prime Video. Disney+ and Apple TV+. APV is desperately dropping fat stacks of cash to buy a must-watch hit of its own, while Disney is home to damn near every pop culture behemoth going like Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and the Disney Princesses.
Then there’s Apple TV+, which committed to only producing shows and movies that are as premium as its devices. It’s had huge success with the brilliantly weird Severance, the feelgood comedy Ted Lasso and by returning Jennifer Aniston to telly for The Morning Show.
All three are cheaper than Netflix. The House of Mouse asks $14.99 per month, Amazon practically gives Prime Video away at a meagre $8 per month and Apple literally gives Apple TV+ away if you bundle your cloud storage and music streaming service with them. Of course, you can always just pay $8.99 a month for it if you’re not invested in Apple’s eco-system.
Does Netflix have a hit lined up to replace Stranger Things when it concludes this year?
But the biggest problem Netflix has - yes, bigger than all that - is that it’s proven untrustworthy with my time. I’m no longer prepared to invest myself into its original shows because it’s gotten into the habit of canning them almost immediately. For example, its recent live-action remake of 90s pop culture classic Cowboy Bebop got cancelled a few days after it dropped. Days! Other shows dumped after a single season include Uncoupled, 1899, The Get Down and The Dark Crystal.
It does this because it slavishly follows its data, which said very few people had watched past the first episode by the end of its first weekend. What it didn’t take into account is that not everyone can binge a whole series in three days. I liked the first episode, planned to watch more and then Netflix killed it so I didn’t bother because what was the point? It fulfilled its own prophecy.
Someone needs to inform Netflix it takes longer than a few days for a show to become a hit. Game of Thrones took four seasons before everyone began huddling around the watercooler to discuss dragons and snow zombies. Seinfeld was almost booed off the box after its first and second seasons, only really finding its audience in the third.
Word also leaked that Netflix usually dumps shows, no matter how big, by the fourth season because that is when production costs, royalties and salary expectations rise.
By prematurely dumping shows or prematurely ending ones that are becoming hits Netflix has successfully disincentivised me from investing my time, energy and passion into its shows because they’re all created atop a ticking timebomb.
Why would you bother? Well, if you were me, you wouldn’t.
