Netflix isn’t in trouble, Wall Street is.

Now let me get this straight, you’ve got “professional” investors and analysts, focusing on money, not art, not the service Netflix provides, who consistently get it wrong in their own field telling us what is going to happen in another field? Hogwash. They’re barely worth listening to. They can’t predict what is going to happen in their own world, how can they predict what is going to happen with Netflix?

Netflix is the market leader with first-mover advantage, it’s got the most customers with the most product and in one quarter it doesn’t blow the doors off and not only do we hear streaming must be questioned, but that ads must be inserted…that’s like asking Apple to put every port in existence on the Mac, when Steve Jobs famously excised legacy ports and pushed the customer into a better future.

Like Reed Hastings.

Let’s go back here. Hastings said he was making Netflix a streaming company as opposed to a DVD by mail company and the public freaked out. Turned out Hastings knew more than the public. When was the last time you played a DVD? Do you even have a DVD player in the house? Hastings blinked, backed away from his statement, re-emphasized DVDs for a minute and then went full speed ahead in streaming and revolutionized TV in the process.

Let’s see… Cable subscriptions dropped. Other legacy companies eventually jumped in. And bingeing became a worldwide pastime. But somehow Netflix is in the dumper. Give me a break.

America is addicted to story. It’s a human desire. TikTok, YouTube, they fulfill a different need, except when they try to follow the same paradigm, have you heard about Snapchat Stories???

So Netflix is bedrock. It’s never going to go to zero. It’s like saying food is on the way down. Or air or water.

Well, as long as it doesn’t cost too much.

Yes, Netflix broke the price barrier. To the point where customers started thinking about what they were paying. It used to be cheap, but once it exceeded fifteen dollars…

This is psychology, this is why everything you buy ends up shy of a round number, with some dollar amount and ninety nine cents. This is why music subscription prices should not be raised. You don’t think about $9.99, but once you go a penny over that, you do. And you might cancel.

Investors have no idea what is going on with the hoi polloi. Did you see that online ad guy slated to make $835 million? And David Solomon, head of Goldman Sachs, rejiggered payments on investments so he will make more. Turns out he’s angry that he’s not making as much as the tech titans. So he’s giving himself a bigger cut, screw the investors.

Life is hard at the bottom. Which accounts for password sharing… Can I say that I share a password for Hulu? I’m sick and tired of being pecked to death by ducks. I’m paying for Netflix, Amazon, HBO…it’s an insult to pay for one more.

We solved this problem in the music business, we deliver all the music for one low price. But in visual entertainment? They took the cable model, imported it to streaming and charged just as much. This is progress? What we need is a streaming bundle, give me all the services for a lower price. But no, these nincompoops don’t want to live in the future, they want to import the past!

Bottom line… Inflation is raging. And despite the great employment numbers, look at how much most Americans are making…bupkes! When you have a nonessential service (and I know this sounds like a contradiction to what I said above, but when you’re broke only food and shelter are necessary) you don’t insult the customer by raising the price, which Netflix did. As for HBO…most people get it with their cable package. It’s just one element in the overall price. As for Disney… It’s cheaper and not only does it have children’s fare, it’s got “Star Wars.” Which is like the New York Yankees of visual content, at least the Yankees of yore. You can raise the price of gasoline and food and get away with it, but entertainment has a ceiling. And oftentimes what looks like a victory is actually a loss. Overpriced CDs with one good track paved the way for Napster. People felt so ripped-off they didn’t give a hoot about file-trading, they had no guilt. And then the RIAA started suing customers. That’s right, instead of looking to the future they tried to reassert the past. How does that look today, from a streaming world where revenues are going up and up? It’s a worldwide business now. Latin is flourishing. Whereas in the past physical world music was to a great degree Balkanized, but streaming, an advance in distribution, opened the floodgates.

Just like in visual entertainment. “Squid Game”? “Money Heist”? Those international hits are on Netflix, not the competitors. The competitors are way behind, they have a de minimis amount of product, especially Apple, tell me why people are going to pay for that service again? Most people are still getting it for free, at least it’s cheap.

And then Jason Kilar comes along and puts theatrical movies on streaming and Hollywood flips out. Hollywood is like Wall Street, they don’t even know there is cheese, never mind having it moved. Come on you investors and analysts, when was the last time you went to a movie theatre? That’s for kids!

As for ads… Don’t tarnish the service. That’s like asking Tesla to make a $20,000 car. SiriusXM doesn’t have a free tier and it does quite well, subscription separates it from the vast wasteland of terrestrial radio. It’s a psychological benefit. As for Hulu…it’s a fading service, with providers pulling their content, and to use it as an example is like listening to the wankers with no audience complaining they’re making no money from Spotify.

And one thing we’ve been taught over the last twenty years, over and over and over again, is you give the public what it wants or you pay the price. The public does not want to be spoon-fed content. What is here today is gone tomorrow in news, in every walk of life. But not in entertainment? If you don’t deliver it all now, chances are it will fade away with almost no one seeing it. Waiting week to week for product is an old model, instituted at the advent of television, waiting week to week for a show these days is like delaying orgasm for months, and no one likes that. Immediate is everything these days, but not in streaming TV? Come on!

As for week to week… Yes, it might work for big hit shows, anointed as great, but those are very few in number. Sure, we have “Ted Lasso,” but have you forgotten “The Morning Show”? Which still hasn’t recovered from being released week by week? Everyone who saw the entire first season raved, but most people didn’t get past the first episode or two, which were substandard. Don’t take the outlier and make it the paradigm for everything. Netflix was built on bingeing, you don’t want to remove that aspect. As for me, I pay for HBO but I don’t watch their hit shows, always geared to adults, I can’t bother to watch an episode at a time, never mind forgetting what happened previously. And when the series is done the buzz is over and I don’t even bother, I’m behind the curve. Whereas when the episodes are all released at once a series is a time bomb, a cult item that can be discovered any time in the future. I binged “The Americans” and loved it, I didn’t bother when it was on TV. I binged “Prisoners of War” on Hulu (which is why I borrowed the password), it was rated the best foreign series of the decade by the “New York Times,” but I didn’t bother watching the English remake “Homeland,” even though I pay for Showtime (as part of the mysterious cable bundle). Now if every season had been released at once, I would have.

I could go further, proving my point, but the truth is the business people have no idea what the youngsters do, they’re out of touch. All those week by week “hits” are adult shows, the youngsters don’t bother (except for “Star Wars”/”The Mandalorian”). This is just like music and CDs and Napster, Hollywood and Wall Street are out of touch with the customer.

Netflix must stay the course. People are still adjusting to looking for new product on the service as opposed to cable. And it could figure out how to address password sharing. Come on all you oldster analysts, don’t you remember when everybody stole HBO and other services? You just took the filter off your cable, or paid your installer to do it. Then cable went digital and that was over. If people want it bad enough they’ll pay for it. But don’t make the price too high and… Come on, college students don’t watch cable, and they’re going to forgo Netflix? Don’t be ridiculous. And maybe have a lower price for students, as long as you can prove that people are students. Young people are not too concerned about privacy, they’ll enter their digits for a deal.

And there is a ceiling to how many people will subscribe to streaming TV outlets. Eventually everybody had a smartphone, it became a mature business. But still, there is headroom for Netflix. As for the company losing 35% of its value… God, imagine if these stockpickers and analysts were publicly traded and if they didn’t make as much as they did the previous quarter their net worth would drop a concomitant amount, i.e. 35%.

And why is it no one can stumble or make a mistake at a publicly traded company? Why do profits have to keep going up and up and up?

You know who did this best? Jack Welch, at GE. He essentially cooked the books to satisfy Wall Street. And then what happened? GE cratered, it couldn’t continue. I could delineate chapter and verse but this is one story Wall Street knows. And GE Capital? Looked brilliant before the market crashed. Talk about foresight…THERE WAS NONE!

As for what to watch on Netflix…

I point you to my list from over a year ago:

“Best Series On Netflix-In Order”: https://tinyurl.com/26k9zwxx

There, that’ll keep you going for months, if not an entire year. And they’re all blue chips!

And how many hours can someone watch television anyway. So we were all home during lockdown and…

The country may be in trouble, but not Netflix… Netflix is forever!

“Bill Browder’s New Book | Lefsetz Letter. This has got to be one of the best reviews of Freezing Order yet. And for anyone wondering, I’ve never met the reviewer before in my life.”

@Billbrowder

_______________________________

From: H H Burnham

Subject: Re: The Coachella Backlash

My Coachella was 2005. A fucking lifetime ago. When Trent demanded we be on the bill right before New Order and then NIN.  Tony Wilson introduced us. It was glorious. but, of course, we had an asshole Tour Manager who gave the All Access passes to his bitch friends while my wife and 5 year-old daughter had to stay stuck backstage. But it was a blast. Ask Flea….he was bopping up and down at the side of the stage. We’ll do it next year, if they have a clue. My daughter is singing with us now – with an AAA pass around her neck. We haven’t sold out – we still fucking deliver, no compromise – no sell out. And loud.

Shit still matters, still resonates, when you do it right.

Hugo

from my damn phone

_______________________________

From: Michael Symonds

Subject: Re: John Martyn

Hey Bob,

Devoted subscriber since the mid 2000’s.  I rarely reply to your emails but thought I would in this instance.  I remember seeing John Martyn perform at the Mountford Hall in Liverpool, England around 1980.  I took my school friend, Richard, with me on the back of my motorcycle, (can’t remember if it was a Yamaha XT 500 or  Kawasaki 500 H1 “Widowmaker”).  It was just John on stage with his guitars, a copycat device and a six pack which he consumed between songs . He really was an incredible singer/guitarist and gave a wonderful performance that night which I have never forgotten.

Nine years later, I’m working for a record company in London. A dear friend asked me to help put on live music at the Chelsea Arts Club Ball.  We recruited a few members of the lighting and audio crew from the Royal Albert Hall and they created something truly amazing. I helped them install a massive lighting rig in the main room where the bar was located.  The bar remained open and staff continued to serve drinks to a large crowd of members as we struggled to raise four extremely heavy 8 feet tall uprights. If we dropped one I am sure we would have killed some of the patrons who were milling around us, seemingly completely oblivious to the danger around them.   Two of the uprights were located at each end of the bar and I was detailed to hold one steady while the crew worked to secure it. I turned my head to listen to a tech who was trying to give instructions from the balcony above us (not easy in a noisy bar).  It was then that I noticed that standing next to me was someone who I immediately recognized as John Martyn. Super nice and friendly to me, he introduced himself , then bought me a pint while I was holding on to the upright for dear life.   I remember telling him about the Liverpool show and how much I loved his music and in particular his album “One World” . Off he went to join whoever he was with and as soon as I got the all clear to let go of the secured upright, I took care of that pint.

Best wishes,

Michael

_______________________________

Subject: Re: John Martyn

Great to be reminded that Richard Griffiths was John’s agent before me (starting approx 1978) and I later became his manager (’83’-’88).

 

He was hugely talented, brilliant when on stage and delightful when sober, but with an undercurrent of anarchy. 

 

Selling out two major London venues back-to-back (5,500 people) and good Piece By Piece album sales unnerved him and he told me he’d rather go back to playing pubs and getting cash in his hand each night, with no pressures.

 

Also, I’m sure Ed Sheeran must have studied his unique (in those days) guitar technique.

 

Steve Parker.

_______________________________

Subject: Re: Spotify’s Share

Hi Bob,

As an independent artist, we never see any cash from Spotify. The threshold is too high.

But the reason it’s got the leg up on Apple Music is the quality of the algorithms.  People DISCOVER so much music on Spotify.  Depending on your search, it will continue to feed you similar music that you will genuinely like.  It leads you down your chosen rabbit hole and makes you an expert in that niche.  When the whole Rogan thing hit I tried to get buy-in from our kids to change our family music plan from Spotify over to Apple.  Teenage son kicked up a huge stink.  He spends probably 12+ hours a day listening to music.  I said: “But the sound quality..!”  He said I don’t care about hi res sound, I can’t live without Spotify.  It knows what I like and I always hear the new music first, before my friends.

Have a great week!

Mara Weiss

New Zealand

https://bit.ly/3OmMdRu

But maybe this one won’t work either.

If you clicked you might have gotten a woman who looks like Courtney Thorne-Smith talking about her lack of sex. Ironically, this is what I got when I clicked the link someone sent me in the first place. I guess web browsers and apps are not made to work together. And in truth, most people watch this stuff on the hand-set and…

If the above link still yields the wrong video, sign in to TikTok and search for: oldloserinbrooklyn The video I’m referring to is the most recent one, subtitled: ” My quick analysis on the shift of Coachella culture/fashion”

Watch this: https://tinyurl.com/yckp3kmk

You may never go on TikTok, you may not even have an account, but the target demo does, you know, the impressionable youngsters with disposable income. They don’t bother with Instagram, they never had a Facebook account, as far as the mainstream media goes…that’s something oldsters argue about, if anything important happens, that they need to know, they’ve got their own special sources, many of which the mainstream is unfamiliar with, and if they were they’d spam them and kill them.

So Coachella happened last weekend. And will repeat this coming weekend. Did you miss anything?

With my immune condition I’m not ready to join in with 125,000 maskless attendees in the desert. Then again, can you believe the hoopla over removing masks on planes? One Trump judge says no and it’s like the messiah has returned. Sacrifice, the Golden Rule, doesn’t exist in America anymore.

Anyway, we’re talking about Coachella.

What do we know about Coachella? It was a financial failure that was rescued by AEG. It was ahead of the audience, it was too hip for the average American, it was out there, it was where reputations were made, where acts were broken, like Daft Punk. They were far from household names when they blew up Coachella, the hoi polloi didn’t get clued in until years later, when the act had a hit single.

And EDM/dance music, whatever you want to call it. That burgeoned first at Coachella. I’m not saying there weren’t parties, raves elsewhere, but it was Coachella that demonstrated the huge demand for this music, the Sahara tent often outdraws the main stage.

And because Coachella was cutting edge word started to spread, and you know what happens then…YOU’VE GOT TO BE THERE!

First it was only locals, it became a rite of passage for Southern California youth. Then it blew up worldwide, it became the largest grossing festival in the world. And then…

Tickets sold out without even a lineup being announced.

Yes, you’ve got it, the festival became bigger than the acts.

But then, over nearly twenty years, the generations changed. Coachella was built on indie rock, it was the “other.” But then the “other” disappeared. A younger generation which was not anti-internet, that gave away the music and was happy to do it, took over the mainstream music business. Oldsters have been crying in their beer ever since. Finding unending scapegoats along the way. From Shawn Fanning and Napster to Daniel Ek and Spotify… Funny how they’re both from the younger demo, they got it when the boomers running the music business did not.

And with so many acts in the marketplace, it became a world of winners and losers. This has got nothing to do with streaming outlets or major labels, it has to do with the audience. The audience split. There were those who liked the mainstream, and the legacy acts, and those who wore music as a badge of honor, and were into the more obscure. And a huge gulf exists between these two poles. This is the issue, not Spotify.

So, younger generations are not burdened by legacy systems. They never owned CDs, they never watched MTV, furthermore they came of age when the audience became the star.

Yes, this has been going on for twenty years, but social media amplified it in the last ten. Heroes were torn from their pedestals and average human beings gained traction as influencers. To the point where if you’re not getting hate then you must not be too popular. Everybody thinks they’re equal in America now, and everybody thinks they’ve got an opinion that deserves to be heard, so if you’re banking on your past accomplishments, good luck.

So Coachella had to pivot. It was obvious to everybody in the business. Just like the Super Bowl had to move from classic rockers to more contemporary artists, so did Coachella.

And the audience was fine with this. After all, this was the music they listened to, it was the only music that got consensus. The paragon being Beyonce, who gave a one time performance that became legendary. A paradigm that cannot be repeated, just like Radiohead’s “In Rainbows.” You were either there or you weren’t.

But over time everybody could participate, there was a Netflix special. No one needs to have FOMO anymore. Actually, I was discussing Coachella with a friend of mine and he said he had JOMO, the “joy” of missing out.

So what we’ve got here is a whole new audience with different mores served by the establishment.

And what does the establishment do best? HYPE ITSELF! The establishment gloms on to a story and beats it to death. Coachella was everywhere the past week. And despite YouTube bragging that it broadcast the festival, numbers are always anemic for the stream, because it’s all about BEING THERE!

And it used to be about being there and consuming the music, now it’s about showing off, posting to social media, raising your image amongst your peers. Sure, you’ll see a few acts, but you’re not going to rave about them as much as you are about your experience at the festival, and who wore what, who won the influencer game.

Sure, there are headliners with fan bases. But today’s fan bases are thinner than ever. Yet more dedicated. So yes, you’ve got an army which lives for the headliner and their music, but the rest of the audience shrugs…they might know the hits, they might want to tell people they saw the act, but there’s a good chance they were talking to their friends during the performance anyway. Yes, unless you’re right up close you can have a conversation, outside you can’t feel the music, except for surround sound dance, but…

Baby boomers were individualists. It was about excelling.

Forget Gen-X, it’s a lost generation which will tell you its thunder was stolen by the boomers.

Millennials? It was all about being a member of the group.

Gen-Z?

Well, we know that it’s pissed that nobody in power is listening to them. They’re concerned about climate change, they want a more egalitarian society, but they’ve got no power and nothing changes yet they are the ones who are going to have to live with the consequences of the old guard’s inactions and actions.

So what this breeds is outliers, leaders. And we haven’t had that spirit here for a very long time.

Everybody over the age of 25 has sold out. It’s commercialism 24/7. And they rationalize this by saying everybody else does it. It’s mine for me and screw everybody else. Meanwhile, have you noticed how rich and fabulous I am?

Then again, the older generations, just like the musical acts, have a huge division between the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, whereas amongst Generation Z…. You can be a star even though you’re never on TV, never in the news and only post on social media. You can reach more people than those who are featured in those outlets.

So Mandy Lee, aka “oldloserinbrooklyn,” the creator of the TikTok clip linked to above, has 335.7k followers, and 12.8 million likes. That’s more attention than most of the undercard at Coachella!

As for this clip, it’s got 191.1k likes, and 3771 comments.

And what does this clip say?

Coachella is where follower poseurs go to create content for social media. It’s all a capitalist venture propped up by the attendees.

And this is absolutely correct. You won’t see it in the straight news, no, in the straight news it’s all hosannas, Coachella was wonderful, let me tell you about the performances, the outfits, the parties. Yes, you weren’t cool enough to get into these parties that are off-site and take place during the show itself. I never got that, aren’t you there to go to the festival?

So Coachella has become commercialized. Sure, AEG has capitalized, with VIP tickets and expensive food and drink, but it’s been amplified times a zillion by the usual suspects, the same ones doing nothing about climate change, the same ones dismissing Gen-Z completely, unless it’s concerned with how to milk more money from these kids.

So oldloserinbrooklyn is speaking the truth. It’s a rare thing. We don’t see it in D.C. and we don’t see it in the entertainment business, that’s for sure. It’s all smoke and mirrors, lies, trying to coerce you into doing something that will benefit the purveyor.

Truth resonates. What did John Lennon say, “Give me some truth”?

So is this a harbinger of a change, a pivot.

I’m not saying Coachella is going to tank, then again nothing lasts forever, and the purveyors are always the last to know, like with the aforementioned Napster and TikTok. Even Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t see the power of TikTok until it was too late!

Coachella has been taken over by its audience. Sure, they expect a bill of famous talent, but that’s not why they go, they go to see and be seen, to mingle, to be a star themselves, to spread their brand.

Come on, you can’t read the “news” without seeing pictures of Olivia Jade and her bikini, with her take on the school admissions scandal. She’s only a hero to the brain dead, she should STFU and go back to college, any place that will take her, because being famous for nothing is a tough row to hoe. And not everybody can be a cosmetics magnate. Olivia Jade is a follower.

And it wasn’t only her. Vanessa Hudgens, actually now an oldster herself, Kylie Jenner, Hailey Baldwin…their Coachella pictures are everywhere. Interestingly, there are more pictures of these “celebrities” than there are of the acts!

It’s empty.

And it appears that some people know it. Ergo the backlash.

Younger generations are sick of being corralled by corporations. And believe me, music is corporate. Sure, some are sheep, but it’s cool not to be a sheep. And we haven’t had that spirit since…

The baby boomers.

Gen-Z is the baby boomers’ kids’ kids. Yes, their grandkids. Time has gone by, a lot of it. And change is a-brewing.

But nobody in power sees this, adjusts for it, plans for it. All we hear from labels is if something blows up online we’ll sign it and amplify it and promoters tell us they’ll book it. Pushing the envelope, creating something? That’s been left to the hoi polloi.

The same ones who paraded at Coachella.

They have the power. And they have the bucks.

And they’re sick and tired of being pandered too, being sold the same old dreck at expensive prices. Coachella is just their parents’ festival rejiggered for them. There’s nothing cutting edge, it’s just a party they want to attend.

But not everybody.

This is another problem with music. Those who control it came of age in the seventies and eighties, when music literally drove the culture. It was all top-down. Now it’s bottom-up, and that’s hard to corral and control.

Evidence of the music being secondary is the parties at Coachella, hell, there was Revolve, the new Fyre Festival, they weren’t selling music, they were selling exclusivity. You don’t need music to bring this generation together.

So now what is Coachella to do?

It merged with the mainstream. The concept of breaking new, out there acts, is passé. Its mission is history. It’s just a party for youngsters and those who want to be youngsters. The talent is like booking a clown for a birthday party. Or the band at a bar mitzvah or wedding. Yes, you need the entertainment, the music, but that’s not what people remember. The entertainment is the penumbra.

Yes, the music has become secondary.

And not only at Coachella. If you don’t respect the music itself, if you’re not willing to test limits, if you sell out, you lose all respect. Coachella and the record labels used to be leaders, now they’re followers. The audience is the leader.

And to innovate you have to take risk. And no one involved in legacy media wants to. On some level it’s like the last twenty years never happened. In the music business it’s the same as it ever was.

But there’s nothing close to the Talking Heads.

Unless it’s David Byrne wowing audiences on Broadway by presenting a show that reinvents what a rock concert is, containing dancing and multiple instruments and…

Then again, David Byrne is an artist.

Most of the people plying the stage at Coachella?

THEY’RE MERCENARIES!