P.S. Another issue, not involved in the strike as far as I know, is how the siloing of content on streaming platform penalizes the creatives. In the old days, the people who made a film wanted the maximum number of butts in seats. They wanted their films in as many theaters as possible, and they bargained hard with the theater chains for screens. Lots of ticket buyers, and everyone could make money.
Now the streamers put their new content behind subscription walls that exclude the substantial majority of the potential audience. Oh, sure: a good movie, if it has any legs at all, will usually (though not always) emerge eventually on other platforms. But that may take a long, long time — becoming generally available long after the buzz has passed and you and I have forgotten about it.
The streamers silo the content because they use it as bait for selling subscriptions. But that’s a revenue model that cuts the creatives off at the knees — especially when the viewership data isn’t shared so that the creatives have no basis for negotiating for performance pay.
I suppose in a perfect world, the creatives would declare independence, form their own production companies, and seek alternative distribution arrangements on their own terms. The independents have always done it this way. In ten years, looking back, we may see that the current angst is simply another stage in the death throes of a legacy business model.
The YouTube presentation that I linked earlier touches on this. The presenter, who is very good, hits this point hard. Yes, the whole industry is in freefall, but it is the suits who blew up the established system. The big companies all bet on the streaming model. They embarked on insane overexpansion and incurred huge debt trying to become the next Netflix. Most of the streamers have never broken even; they have accepted operating losses as the price of rapid expansion. Now the industry is oversaturated and starting to contract, with production cuts and a further wave of consolidations. Basically, the suits made a huge mistake. The execs got an epic case of groupthink and they made a huge mistake. Now they’re killing the creatives, who are the basis of their industry, to cut costs.
But not to worry, AI will replace all the people anyhow.
“Another issue ... is how the siloing of content on streaming platform penalizes the creatives”
Hadn’t thought of that. If management can make the most money by producing low quality offerings that are cheap to produce — well, that’s economics 101.
Also, the streamers offer lots of old material which must be relatively cheap to distribute, and some of it is very good and not yet seen by younger people. Maybe today’s creators are being heart by their own past productions.
As you say, maybe the creatives can become co-owners of new distribution systems.