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Feb 22, 2023Liked by Sam Becker

"I took a look at “My List” the other day, and found that 90% of it was stuff my wife wanted to watch. Not me. I don’t know what “Bridgerton” is, and I don’t intend to find out."

Sam, you made me laugh with this one! My lists (on Prime and Apple TV, not Netflix, are also filled with stuff I'll probably never watch, but I'm the one who put them there. I cut Netflix several years ago; the price vs the amount of content that I wanted to watch didn't seem worth it.

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Interested to hear your take on the desire for constant growth. I feel like it is a combo of greed and debt. All these companies borrow incredible amounts of money and have to grow in order to unlock more debt to pay off the old debt. Thoughts?

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I have the same feelings about Netflix.

A subscriber since 2010, it’s one of the longest relationships I’ve ever had.

Yet the only thing that kept me from canceling recently was getting a “free” subscription with a new phone plan. It only postponed the inevitable.

Like you, it’s not one thing but a stew of price escalation and corporate greed and arrogance that turned me off.

The password pivot is one thing. Another is the now constant rapid fire cancellation of series before they even have a chance to build an audience.

What’s happening with Netflix is what Cory Doctorow calls enshittification.

“ HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”

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