Netflix – Sonya Ellen Mann

Yesterday I listened to “The Annual Jay & Farhad Company Of The Year Show” and one of the businesses they discussed was Netflix. Blah blah blah cord-cutting, blah blah blah original content — the usual stuff, but funny because of the hosts’ banter. Incidentally, I don’t think cord-cutting will be that big of a deal. Millennials like me who never sign up for cable in the first place might cause a bigger shift. Perhaps “cord irrelevance” is a better term?

Main characters from Peep Show. — I love *Peep Show* with a deep and abiding passion.

Anyway, I agree with them that Netflix is a phenomenal company, and I expect Reed Hastings to keep doing well. Some of their recent shows have hit it out of the park — Master of None and Making a Murderer both got a lot of attention. House of Cards is a brilliant piece of media. That said, it’s really all about binge-watching old shows, and old seasons of current shows. The long tail is crucial! What I want from Netflix is continued access to:

Peep Show
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Law & Order (various flavors)
Malcolm in the Middle
The X-Files (original series)
etc
this is not a comprehensive list of TV shows that I like

Joe Berkowitz for Fast Company: “This Is What Happens When You Walk Into Starbucks And Talk To The Barista About Race”. The entertaining article points out some of the ludicrous aspects of Starbucks’ #RaceTogether campaign. I emailed the link to a friend, who prefers to remain anonymous for job reasons, but commented:

“This reminds me of Netflix saying it was going to split the company into two brands and no longer have a single brand aimed at people who wanted to watch movies. I mean… it’s true that I pay separate fees for the DVD’s and the streaming… but two separate brands was just stupid. I mean, one of those ideas that you didn’t test on anyone. #RaceTogether is just such an idea. Massively stupid and damaging to the brand… but probably not forever. It will go away, and then people will forget about it after a few months.”

Basically. To enforce my friend’s point, I had totally forgotten about the Netflix fiasco! Remember how bad the new name was? Qwikster. Bahaha. I love when brands phenomenally mismanage things.

Starbucks UGLY SIDE !!! — Photo by Ahmad Ziyad Maricar.

See also: Hamilton Nolan mocking the Starbucks initiative, Khushbu Shah rounding up salient tweets, and Hayley Peterson reviewing the hilarity of a Starbucks exec deleting his Twitter due to #RaceTogether criticism. Bruh. How can you lack self-awareness so profoundly?

Jokes aside, Tressie McMillan Cottom makes the most humane observation:

“It takes a lot of training and a lot of institutional support to teach people things they would rather not hear. I wonder what kind of training and support the hourly wage baristas at Starbucks will get.”

Tag: Netflix

What I Want from Netflix

Starbucks Competing For Corporate Cluelessness Award