That’s interesting. I’d love to read those papers, if you remember what they were.

I do wonder if an in-house aesthetic can become ‘tacky’ in the age of global media - can trends ‘die’ when there are still billions more people to reach? And will a creative org structure like this be able to move fast enough should that happen? I don’t think we know the answer to that yet.

I personally believe (maybe optimistically!) that this will be an important question even though Netflix’s natural conclusion is to move towards the subscription-retaining, low-creative products like sports that you mentioned.

The problem with those entertainment products is that they have intrinsic value: if the provider is adding little value besides distribution, some (or lots) of users will pirate that content. Super apparent in sports media.

Maybe it’s a naive hope, rather than a belief, but I hope / believe that because of this, companies like Netflix will be ultimately forced by users to have more idiosyncrasy in their production pipeline and output. It’ll be really interesting to find out!