Tune in tomorrow, Saturday October 15th, to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz

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The problem with Netflix isn’t the price, but the content!

Man do they have it wrong.

In a world with a plethora of streaming options, one is ready to cancel any at a whim if there is not programming they want to see. Don’t tell me about dripping out product… No way I’m subscribing to Apple TV+ for multiple months to see “Bad Sisters,” I’m just waiting until it’s over to partake.

Or not. When the buzz is done, do I need to see it?

The “Squid Game” mania… Talked to anybody who’s watched the series recently? I certainly haven’t, it’s old news. Sure, some series survive, I’m aware of all those stories about the “Friends” reruns, but “Friends” was created in a completely different era. Today’s productions have a very short shelf life. You watch them and move on. All you’re doing by dripping out the episodes is leaving people on the sidelines, who won’t even bother to subscribe. As for lowering the price, how does NOTHING sound. Ad-supported for free sounds good to me. Make the damn commercials so onerous that only the truly cheap will take this option. Michael Eisner said 10% of the public will never pay, never ever. A lower price ain’t gonna work, never.

As for the lower price…

It’s not like we live in a vacuum, with no data. The freemium model has existed for years. You give away a hobbled version and people get so addicted they’re willing to pay for the real thing. This is Spotify’s model. 45% of people who use Spotify’s free tier ultimately convert to the paid tier: https://on.wsj.com/3MzKaZU People have the money if you have a desirable product. And if you don’t, there’s no lowering of the price that can entice me.

Does Apple have two tiers of prices? OF COURSE NOT! Apple leaves the low-priced goods to the rest of the companies, and ain’t it interesting that Apple is the only company that consistently makes money on handsets.

Turns out all those other people, those on Android, don’t want to pay for goods. Yes, Apple has a smaller market share, but almost all of the income from apps. I mean first and foremost, you go for the people who PAY!

Netflix was seen as a premium product. Now the brand has taken a hit. Having a Netflix account was a badge of honor. And maybe it’s less strong since competitors have entered the marketplace, but everybody knows Netflix has the most new product, and it’s all about new product, because new product ultimately becomes old product, and money can be reaped forever, especially with the Netflix model, where they buy out all the rights.

Did people think “Mayberry” was gonna run forever? Ron Howard will be long in the grave and people will be watching the small town shenanigans. Does every series have legs? Absolutely not, but you’ve got to make many to find out. This is the flaw in the Zaslav model. Once you start cutting production, you’re cutting yourself off at the knees. You need a lot of product, because even the best idea on paper might be a turd in the final result. And you never know what will catch on with the public. People will be watching “Stranger Things” for decades. Did anybody anticipate that? NO!

So, you pay attention to the seers on Wall Street and you’re cooked. Look at Amazon. Everybody bitched about its bottom line, but Bezos wouldn’t cut back, he wouldn’t yield. And then came Prime and then came AWS (Amazon Web Services). Neither was in the original plan. In cost-cutting mode you never take the chance, but if you’re willing to spend, new opportunities develop and come to fruition. Once you cut spending to improve your numbers…death. Especially in new model, tech companies.

Netflix shouldn’t cut back production to save money, it should stay the course, because only with hit product will people pay every month.

As for paying, many many people are watching without paying. They’re hooked on the product, but instead of hoovering up that money, Netflix is trolling for those who haven’t opened their wallets, who can live without the service, HOW DUMB IS THAT?

Everybody believes they’re getting away with something when they share passwords. It’s kinda like Napster. Users knew it was free, but there was no modern alternative. Also, staying with Napster, users saw it as a protest against the outdated business model, of $15 for a CD with one good track. If you’re not pissed about the streaming world, you’re not a user. I used to pay one price for everything on cable, it was expensive, but it was my choice. Now I feel like I’m being pecked to death by ducks. I can only watch one show at one time, but I’ve got to subscribe to all these services? I’m not canceling because they’re too expensive, I can afford it, it’s just an insult. Sell me all the services, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Apple+, Discovery+…never mind Sundance Now an BritBox and Topic…for one price, just name it, I don’t care. If I’m paying for the complete cable package it’s not like I’m pissed that I’m watching one channel at a time.

What’s gonna happen if Netflix cuts off password-sharers. They’re gonna disconnect? THEY’RE NOT PAYING TO BEGIN WITH! People pony up for what they want, and these people already want it. Who do you want to try and convince to pay, those already in your store or the random person on the street? Those inside the store, those sharing passwords, are already interested!

So I’m sitting at home, thinking whether I want to pay $6.99 for Netflix with ads. I’m not paying to begin with. It’s a hurdle I don’t want to jump.

But there are plenty of free services out there: Freevee, Roku… Most of it is junk, but you’ve got to pay for the good stuff. Rolex doesn’t sell a model with a Timex inside.

I just don’t know who the people are who are going to pay for something they aren’t already. I’m not paying for Paramount+, I’m not paying for Discovery+. because they’re complete rip-offs, also-rans. You want me to pay to watch one good show when the rest is recycled dreck? I can live without that program. I want you to go out of business, or merge, or license your product to one of the big kahunas.

That’s what these services don’t understand, WE CAN LIVE WITHOUT ANY OF THEM! Streaming services are not the most important purchases in our lives, they’ve got to earn our money. It’s a yes/no proposition, it’s black and white, it’s not a matter of price. Look, a movie costs fifteen to twenty bucks but I’m going to haggle over paying fifteen bucks for a service with tons of product for a MONTH? No, it’s just a matter of if I’m interested in what’s being purveyed.

You can’t be all things to all people. That’s a bad business model. It doesn’t work for anybody. You’re inherently dumbing-down the product. Want to make more money Netflix…RAISE THE PRICE! You’ve got to give me something for it, maybe one theatrical release a month, free, immediately, but my wallet is open for the desirable, most people’s is. Are we really arguing over a handful of bucks, do they really think that’s why people are not subscribing to Netflix?

And the cable companies make you subscribe for a year, but Netflix is month-to-month. SiriusXM offers year-long discount products. Better to commit the person for a year at a lower price then try to get them pay month by month, it’s one decision instead of twelve. And if you commit for a year, odds are you’re going to watch, get hooked, you’ve made the deal. Do you buy a product, use it once and then discard it? No, if it’s expensive enough you try to make it work, you Google instructions, it’s going to take a lot for you to put it in a corner to collect dust. You’re INVESTED!

So now streaming TV is just like network. That’s the model. Netflix was a NEW model, but now it’s undercut itself, gone backwards.

This reminds me of the early 2000s in the music business. We’d have all these focus groups with teenagers asking them about the value of music, what it was worth. And almost every one said $10-$15 for a CD was fair. But the dirty little secret was when we asked how many people bought CDs at this price? NONE! They were opining about something they weren’t involved in, and they were telling the questioners what they wanted to hear as they continued to download music from Napster. We could never convince these kids to buy CDs again, we had to come up with a new model. It’s not like if the CD was five bucks they’d buy it, THEY DIDN’T WANT IT AT ANY PRICE!

Just like the people not subscribing to Netflix.

Everybody knew there would come a time when Netflix would run out of potential subscribers. Everybody convinced themselves that we weren’t there yet, that we were living in an unending go-go era, but once you have one smartphone, HOW MANY MORE DO YOU NEED?

You saturate the marketplace and if you want more money you extend the brand, like Spotify, or merge with another company. Patagonia doesn’t do this, but it was privately owned. It wasn’t about the short term insanity of the stock price. And Patagonia’s value, financially and in esteem, has only gone UP! And when they limited sales, saying they wouldn’t sell their vests for corporate retreats, owners of Patagonia products felt even better about their purchases, and went out and bought more, Patagonia was something to BELIEVE IN! And still is.

I used to believe in Netflix.

Now I just see a bunch of businessmen bending in the wind to placate the financial community which has its head up its rear end. It was the bleeding edge product that kept me testifying. But they got rid of the person responsible for that. It would be like HBO firing its development staff and hiring ABC’s. MAKES NO SENSE!

We live in a soulless world where brands are kings, even more than people. Ask me who I believe in most. It certainly ain’t anybody in the Spotify Top 50, I believe in Apple more than them. Apple makes the finest products and doesn’t enter every field. I can feel good about owning Apple products. And Apple is the most valuable company in the world! And their products are more expensive than everybody else’s!

So there are Apple-haters. No problem, it just makes my belief in Apple stronger, especially since most of the haters are having a knee-jerk reaction. Sure, you can customize Android more, but how many people actually want to do that? But even worse, most of the phones can’t be upgraded, Android has the greatest market share, with everybody on a different operating system. Which yields a worse user experience. Apple just pushes the update to everybody.

Does Apple make mistakes? OF COURSE!

But at least Tim Cook has balls. When asked why he didn’t make iMessage RCS compatible, that is work with Android, so the person’s mom could see videos better, he said “Buy your mom an iPhone.” He didn’t weasel, he owned it. And I want to tell you, when I see a green bubble I judge the person. They didn’t get the message? You’re still using an Android? Don’t complain, it’s useless, this is how we iPhone users feel, ALL OF US!

Meanwhile, Reid Hastings and Ted Sarandos are afraid of both the Street and the public. Let’s make it more palatable, let’s play by your rules. Didn’t you win by BREAKING those rules?

This is a product few are interested in. But Netflix felt pressured by Wall Street…

Never a good motivation.

Now Netflix is another bottom line TV company when it used to be so much more. Viewers were in bed with Netflix. I don’t want them under the covers ANYMORE!

“Too Many Songs, Not Enough Hits: Pop Music Is Struggling to Create New Stars – Execs say that a deluge of new music — and the difficulty of influencing TikTok’s algorithm — has made building an audience harder than ever for new acts.”: https://bit.ly/3CCHSEz

You know it’s the truth when the mainstream press locks on to the story.

In every walk of life, the boomer-owned institutions profess the inaccurate claim that we live in one homogenous society upon which they exert control. But we live in an era of chaos. And today it’s nearly impossible to gain traction, which really means an audience. You can get noticed, but for a day. Yesterday’s meme is sophomoric today, if you employ it you look bad. Culture moves incredibly quickly, and almost nothing sticks. But the powers-that-be keep telling us they can make it stick, when they cannot.

Want an example? Beyonce’s new album. It was hosannas all around. Queen Bey has come down from her throne with her miraculous creations which all the “tastemakers” have frothed at the mouth over. This is what we’ve been waiting for, a glorified superstar firing on all cylinders.

Check the Spotify Top 50, there’s not a SINGLE Beyonce song! Not one!

Now in the old paradigm they would have sold millions of albums immediately, based on the mania, but today that paradigm is dead. Today it’s all about streaming longevity, and there is none with Beyonce.

As for the “Billboard” album chart, ignore it completely, It doesn’t reflect reality. Streams are king and on that chart physical and files mean more, but even worse, acts release vinyl to bump their numbers and everywhere you see they’re number one, but not in the eyes (and ears) of the public.

And then there’s that fiction that terrestrial radio still counts. That was the majors’ domain, they controlled it.

“‘A No. 1 radio song doesn’t mean fuck anymore,’ laments one longtime A&R executive.”

Whew, when the labels are saying it you know it must be true. This is their ace in the hole. The head of promotion made more money than everybody at the label other than the president. But now he or she has no effectiveness.

Let’s start with the statistics, tracks, where the chart is much more reliable:

“‘It’s a bigger and more level playing field, and everything is getting lost,’ says Chris Anokute, who co-manages Muni Long. ‘Everyone’s an artist, but almost nobody’s breaking.”

“There are many ways to judge — and argue over — what ‘breaking’ means today; label executives tend to use streaming numbers as a barometer, while most managers prefer to look at ticket sales. But the number of new acts vaulting into the top 10 of the Hot 100 has declined precipitously in the last few years. From 2001 to 2004, over 30 first-timers cracked the top 10 annually. In 2019, however, only 15 first-timers reached the top 10, and 2021 had the lowest number of new entrants this millennium: just 13.”

You can’t reach the top of the heap unless you’ve already established a beachhead, and as we’ve seen with Beyonce above, that’s no guarantee.

Acts like Coldplay and Dave Matthews Band benefit from breaking in the last era wherein music television meant something, they were all over MTV and especially VH1. That avenue is now dead. You can post a video to YouTube for free, but that doesn’t mean you’ll gain a mass of eyeballs, odds are no one will see it other than you and your friends!

And even acts like the Weeknd. He broke when insider buzz still mattered and there were fewer acts out there and streaming was not yet established. If Abel comes out today, he’s got much less mass, no matter how good the records are. Furthermore, that which is made for the mainstream, with the usual suspects following the established formulas, tends not to succeed, the public is looking for something new.

Like Zach Bryan. Who has got the #6 song in the U.S. Spotify Top 50.

This guy was unheard of, with no traction, and he sounds more like a singer-songwriter of the seventies than the dreck played on country radio. The public is looking for authenticity, Bryan delivers it. And quality songs, that are recognizable as songs.

The Morgan Wallen kerfuffle has superseded the music itself in the conversation. But if you listen to Wallen’s double album it’s fantastic, a step above. You can pooh-pooh its success, but that just means you’re turned off by a southern accent and biased against those in the south and…

“Dangerous” is #3 this week and I’ll quote from the “New York Times”: 

“‘Dangerous,’ released at the beginning of 2021, has now spent 90 weeks in the Top 10, matching ‘South Pacific’ — the soundtrack to a 1958 film whose songs go back to a 1949 Broadway production. In the 66-year history of the Billboard 200, the magazine’s flagship album chart, only five other releases have logged more weeks in the Top 10, all soundtracks and cast albums from the 1950s and ’60s.”

And Bad Bunny is the biggest act in the world and he’s Latin and Sam Smith might have a number one track right now with Kim Petras, but Sam also broke before the chaos became extreme.

Music is a business. People like to think of it as art, but that’s not how the major labels see it. They look for an edge, just like the people spamming you with e-mails and texts. They employ leverage, trade on their size and catalogs, but in today’s world, everything they bring to the table isn’t working:

“‘The market’s dry as fuck,’ declares a veteran major-label A&R executive who requested anonymity to speak candidly. ‘There’s less and less shit working. The front-line label business, signing new artists, is in trouble.’ ‘I can honestly say right now that nobody — nobody — knows what’s going on,’ another longtime major-label A&R says.”

As for the fiction that streaming playlists are everything:

“‘Now, just because you’re in a top 10 slot on a big Spotify playlist, it doesn’t mean your audience is growing,’ one manager says.

As for the old formula:

“Taken together, all these factors mean that seizing — and then holding — the attention of the music-loving masses is that much more challenging. ‘It used to be that you released an album, got Rolling Stone to review it, got on tour, got on late-night TV, and that was how you broke,’ says one senior executive at a major label. Even if luck was a factor, the path was clear. ‘It was four or five things. Now you need four or five things a week, or at least a month, or else your streams don’t go up.'”

As for the power of TikTok: 

“The rise of TikTok has complicated matters, too. The platform has become a hit-maker — helping Em Beihold’s ‘Numb Little Bug’ and Nicky Youre’s ‘Sunroof’ climb the charts, for example — but it’s an unpredictable marketing tool, less susceptible to manipulation and less responsive to star power than other platforms. Engineering a viral moment is akin to walking into a corner store and emerging with a winning lottery ticket. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what breaks there,’ says Justin Lehmann, who manages Aminé and Khai Dreams, among others. ‘And without breaking there, it’s difficult to say what else can cause a big moment to happen for anybody.'”

The lunatics have taken over the asylum. It’s a free-for-all. The supposed gatekeepers, the keepers of the flame, the manipulators, have been stopped dead in their tracks. You can do the same old thing, but you’re not going to get the old result, chances are you’re going to get almost nothing.

So the playing field is being leveled.

And the dream is dying.

You remember the dream, where you start out humble and end up world famous, known by everybody, and rich? Nearly impossible today. You can shoot someone, but you’ll only be famous for a day. Come on, we shrug our shoulders at school shootings now. And if you fight to be in the public eye all the time, it backfires. Elon Musk’s image has taken a huge hit. And the more Kanye and Trump talk, the crazier they look. So if you think you can just spam your way to a career by posting 24/7, buying followers…you can end up with statistics but no career, maybe not even any traction at all. And sure, today’s youth don’t mind you pitching yourself, but that’s if you’re a nobody, an influencer. But it’s different if you’re not a member of the rank and file, if you think you’re better than those on TikTok or other platforms, those are owned by the users, not you, the more you press, the worse you look. And then there’s desperation… No one wants to be close to the desperate.

So…

Today’s paradigm is you’re not a star. If you want to create myth and mystique, if you want to hold back your identity, if you want to do all the crap that worked from the fifties to yesterday, you’re screwed. Your only option is to get into the pit, reveal your warts and predilections, and say you’re no better than anybody else, but this is what you do, create music.

And in order for it to grow, you’ll need the public to adopt it. And you cannot push it, it doesn’t work. Believe me, the labels are in bed with TikTok, TikTok pushes priorities to big time users, but even if they make a video with the song…it does not mean it will be picked up by others and will become a phenomenon. First it must have that je ne sais quoi. AND, the creator/influencer has to add their own spin, so the concoction becomes MORE than just your song. This is anathema to the oldsters who were so afraid that their work tapes would become available on Napster. God, you’re dying to have your work tapes released, you’re dying for ANYBODY TO LISTEN TO THEM!

That’s the hardest challenge.

So we’ve got dinosaurs and…

Everybody else.

Everybody else must adjust their outlook.

Let’s start with the festivals. Coachella is bigger than any act, Coachella has the power, as do Lollapalooza, ACL and Outside Lands. Didn’t used to be this way. But after the festival books a headliner or three, which is harder than ever to do, the slots are precious. It’s the only way to expose yourself to a mass audience live. And the traditional ladder has lost its bottom rungs. The club scene is minimal and sure, arena business is good, but getting from here to there?

And the acts keep complaining, looking for culprits, pointing the finger at streaming services. But the truth is, if you’re not making much from Spotify, YOU’RE NOT BEING LISTENED TO MUCH! And no one mentions that Spotify killed piracy and turned recorded music revenues around. No, there must be a return to the past, where almost no one got a deal, you lived off the advance and there was much less, MUCH LESS, competition.

Do I think it’s going to formalize, turn around?

No.

The internet has the power to reach everybody, nearly instantly. But we’ve found out that there’s so much stuff that it’s hard to reach anybody. Adele had her big moment when CDs still counted. The albums after that, despite the hoopla, did nowhere near as well. And the younger audience…doesn’t care about her, not much anyway.

And in truth most people cut off huge swaths of media. They haven’t heard or seen or read it and it does not bother them at all. They’ve found what appeals to them and that’s enough. And it’s always visceral and human. That’s the essence of TikTok, which the same boomers living in the past refuse to explore. TikTok is where the PEOPLE are, where the INNOVATION is. And Netflix doesn’t have to worry about HBO Max or Disney+, it has to worry about TikTok, that’s where all the viewing hours of the young are spent.

Music was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption. And for a long time, the powers-that-be thought they could kill Napster, et al, through sheer will. And then the legal system. Nothing worked until the iTunes store and Spotify. You have to deliver it the way the public wants it. And if you want to enrapture the public, you’ve got to GET AHEAD OF IT!

Yes, now is the worst time for me-too, to be playing it safe. Now is the time to experiment, to be different, to be great, because innovation always sparks a reaction. Then again, the old model of hipsters gravitating to the outside act and then it becoming mainstream is gone too, once again, there’s just too much in the channel.

And no one cares.

You think you’re better than me? I don’t care about this, I don’t know that, I came late to the product… WE’RE ALL LATE! Assuming we see any need to go outside our own little satisfying purview. And they’re not making more time. I want to choose wisely, I don’t want to waste twelve hours on a mediocre series.

As for music, listening to the whole album… You’re lucky if you get people to listen to ONE SONG! Stop the blowback, that’s just how precious people’s time is. If you want our attention you must deserve it. And you do it through being truly great and special, and that’s no guarantee of stardom, it’s just the start of traction, which could die out.

Is it depressing?

Absolutely. But that does not mean it’s not reality.

The professionals are throwing up their hands, they don’t know how to manipulate the market, crack it.

The acts are complaining that they can’t be rich and famous like they used to be.

But the public? It’s overfed and overwhelmed, so it chooses its experiences wisely, wasting time is taboo.

You make your own schedule. Just like you choose your own wallpaper on your laptop and smartphone.

And you can’t trust pollsters, you can’t trust anybody telling you the way it is, THEY DON’T KNOW! You only know for yourself.

Becoming a brand? There needs to be a foundation. People were so focused on becoming a corporation that they ignored the underlying product. They don’t want to put that much effort in, they don’t want to be poor, they want it to be fast and easy…

Steve Lacy may have made it to number one, but:

“Lacy’s career began seven years ago, with The Internet, and his first solo album in 2019 had already earned him a Grammy Award nomination.”

He’s been around for years! That’s how long it takes. You want to succeed now or go to graduate school? Short circuit the whole process, just go to graduate school. Your ten year old sings and you believe they have talent and deserve a spot on the hit parade? Then they must drop out of school, work hard for ten years and probably still won’t hit. Better to at least get an education, which will ultimately pay dividends, which a failed career will not.

But the silver lining is the world has been flattened, and the monoliths of old are in the same boat as the pipsqueak in their basement.

And everybody can play. Put their songs online. Market the hell of out themselves, NEARLY FOR FREE!

The new world is definitely not like the old world.

It’s a longer road than ever to the top if you wanna rock ‘n roll.

But the audience still desires music. There’s still a marketplace. It just does not resemble the pyramid of old.

There’s no buzz.

That used to be the mark of success, whether people were talking about it. You could feel it, it was palpable, you had to investigate, check it out.

Now almost nothing has sustained buzz. You’re foraging by yourself, deciding whether to dip in or not. Sure, there might be hype at the advent, upon release, but after that you’re on your own.

What is it, is it hard to gain traction on Hulu?

Then again, people were talking about “Normal People,” I still here it referenced now and again. Then again, it was romance-centered, it was not challenging.

Netflix still gives you the best shot. But only for a short period of time if the production does not turn into a phenomenon.

Amazon is a black hole.

Disney+ is seen as kid-centric.

The sleeper here is Apple. With little product, and that which there is is dripped out week by week. Apple has got the show with the most buzz today, “Bad Sisters.” It comes up at dinner, Felice’s hair stylist mentioned it. I haven’t started yet, I’m waiting for the final episode to drop next week. And people have e-mailed me frustrated about the week by week drip, and I do not think that created the buzz. I think it’s about the quality. Apple could win this race by focusing solely on quality, not trying to be everything to everybody. Apple sticks with a show as opposed to canceling it willy-nilly. It’s a more diverse HBO, but without the attitude. Apple’s whole business has been about appealing to the elite, the thinkers, the creators, those who are not brain dead. It just may work for them in the streaming sphere. And they’ve got enough money to wait it out.

Oh, HBO Max. Who the hell knows what is going on there. Canceling foreign development. Few HBO Max-specific shows. The merger with Discovery now has a stink upon it, the press mania is gone, will the company, unlike Apple, be hobbled by financial considerations?

Which brings us back to Hulu. What exactly is it? A cable substitute? With both new streaming fare and on demand network and cable shows? People say they must have Netflix, I never hear the same thing about Hulu. Sure, they’ve got “The Handmaid’s Tale,” but unlike “Stranger Things,” buzz has not sustained. People don’t think of Hulu when they think about made for streaming fare, which leaves some shows unseen, like “Ramy.”

You must watch it. On a most basic level, it’s the singular viewpoint of Ramy Youssef. Even the most vaunted comedies are written by committee, and they feel like it. Whereas “Ramy” feels of a piece, it doesn’t waver.

So the first season is the best.

And the second season is really good.

The third? It starts off slowly, almost a caper movie, and just when you think that’s going to be the arc of the entire season, it settles back down in New Jersey, the true locus of the show.

So what you’ve got here is…

An American family, but they’re Muslim. And they’re believers.

Farouk, the father, is a dreamer. As are many who find themselves at the bottom, they’re trying to get rich. His wife, Maysa, played so well by Hiam Abbass, is an intelligent thinker subservient to her husband under Muslim law, but not happy about it. She doesn’t want to hear contradictory opinions, but she knows something isn’t right.

Ramy’s sister Dena is trying to escape. Going to law school. Not wanting to live by conventional Muslim mores.

And then there’s the supporting cast, who are just as good, if not better, than the main characters.

Mo. An entrepreneur with a ghost kitchen is up-to-date, positively modern, yet is still a believer.

Naseem, a closeted, self-hating gay jewelry merchant who believes the world is against him, looking out for those who want to take advantage of him 24/7.

And of course Steve. Who has muscular dystrophy, but that’s not what you focus on, his identity shines through.

So, Ramy has given up his dreams and become a jewelry entrepreneur in order to pay the bills. The progeny of immigrants want to fly from the nest, be artists, live their dreams, but like so many in America, Ramy’s dreams died, reality interfered, he’s earning a living.

And he’s conflicted constantly by religion.

How much does the average person know about Muslims and their religion? Well, other than that terrorist thing, not much. And I’d tell you to watch “Ramy” for educational purposes, but also because it’s so funny!

And the mix of religious issues with practical life issues.

Ahmed is married, but his wife won’t commit to a baby, which he wants so much.

Mo wants Little Mo to win the Quran competition like others want their kids to win the spelling bee, or soccer trophy.

And everybody wants love. But religion is never far away, it plays a part, it interferes.

I wish Ramy was featured in every episode, but ultimately the focus on the supporting characters pays dividends, getting into their unique problems.

Dena working in a law office before taking the Bar Exam… She screws up. Every young lawyer does. And is reprimanded by a higher up, and usually not nicely. She has a crisis of confidence, is this the right career for her?

And Farouk and Ahmed plead their case in their respective situations and you think everything is going to go their way, but it does not, just like in real life.

And the desire of the flesh, the Quran says one thing, but your body says another. You want to have sex but have to hold off and do you end up inexperienced and…

Some are re-evaluating their choices, and others are too fearful to look inside.

Maysa is practical. They’re going to lose their house. She turns to Instacart. But when she delivers for friends, the issue of status comes up. Do you want to admit you’re struggling?

And everybody wants more.

I’ve told you so much, but really I’ve told you so little.

Just like Liv Lisa Fries in the latest season of “Babylon Berlin,” Ramy has grown up, he’s no longer a child, but an adult. He’s physically aged. And once you become an adult the rules change.

And there are issues of friendship. What you’ll do for others and whether you disappoint them and…

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is I strongly recommend “Ramy.” The third season might not be quite as good as what came before, but it’s not like the usual sitcom in later years, just proffering situations to keep the series going and the money flowing. The Muslim religion underlies everything, and whatever religion you may believe in, the questions remain the same: do you do what’s in your heart or what the good book says, does religion ultimately make you feel better or worse, to what degree is God involved in your everyday life…

In a three or four network world…

“Ramy” doesn’t even get made.

In the old basic and pay cable world…

Well, sitcoms are hard to do, and HBO has focused more on dramas.

And in the streaming world, now financially challenged, it’s becoming more about mainstream fare, that which catches on immediately, but in truth, that’s what “Ramy” is. Everybody can relate. How do we get everybody to partake? The hurdles are too high. You’ve got to subscribe to Hulu, you’ve got to find the time…

The old paradigm that if you’re great people will find you is dead. You can be great today and no one can find you.

But if you don’t watch “Ramy” it’s your loss.

Really.