The post-streaming streaming model

I remember seeing it said many years ago that Amazon is a great place to buy but a terrible place to browse. And I thought of that when I was catching up on the Kids Media Club podcast and Emily talked about the “shop window” of Netflix. I feel like we've all struggled with discoverability, both as producers making film and television and as someone lying on the couch on a Saturday night with a bowl full of salt and vinegar crisps doused in extra salt and vinegar (don't judge me - the crinkle cut type hold it well).

And it's a curious problem, because that early criticism of Amazon still seems true today. The difference between going to a physical shop, a bookstore for example, and wandering around and taking it in and picking up a book and looking at the back and trying to do the same online is worlds apart. We can't replicate the experience but we haven't replaced it. Not really.

I mean, we sell a lot of stuff. So in retail, you could argue it's not a real problem.

But I feel it's relevant for those of us in media. And actually, right now, sales aren't so great.

It might feel like a weird thing to say but I think the size of Netflix could be working against it. And it's not just Netflix because the other streamers have been chasing this scale. And this is where I have this nagging feeling that the whole approach to businesses, the systems, the techbro scale approach simply doesn't work for stories, film, television and so on (and whether it's working for humanity generally, I don't know) but I'll put that aside for the moment and just stick to what's there right now.

Netflix has a massive number of subscribers. It is bringing huge amounts of people to that shop window. The shop is huge. It's a vast department store that has to cater to everyone, because it initially attracted everyone. It's like when I got lost in Macy's on a US trip and honestly had a moment where I thought I'd never find my way out again. It's that big.

But the window itself is kind of small. Space is at a premium.

It can only show you so much before you get frustrated. And we as producers on these streamers sometimes can feel like our product is still sitting in the warehouse and has barely made it to the shop floor, never mind the window.

And so I'm looking in Macy's window and I don't want to go in there again because I don't feel the way to the exit is marked clearly enough and I don't need stockings and I'm looking at stockings and yet it's all actually worse than that because we never fully figured out the best ways to browse online.

Which would be okay if my digital Macy's streamer was the only shop in town. But no streamer has everything. Or even close to everything. This isn't a Spotify vs Apple Music situation. It's not the same. People are making choices. And we also know there is very little brand loyalty, with people subscribing for a show and then unsubscribing quickly afterwards.

They're coming for the show, not the streamer.

And that's a huge problem.

You have a vast department store but people don't care a damn about the shop itself.

Now, compare that to a small bookstore that just does detective novels. And the person working there knows everything about them. The customers in that place care about that shop. And sure, most people will still go away and buy on Amazon (although would they have ever found the book there had they not seen it in the store?) but that store still has a core group of loyal customers.

In the reality of the physical world, lots of those kinds of stores got swallowed by the giants.

I think the digital world, when speaking purely about media and film and television, is different. And I think the flaws of trying to be all things to all people is very apparent. And so they're relying on individual pieces of content to pull and keep people there. A popular YouTuber, a huge brand, a premium show from a known creator, that sort of thing.

But they have to keep doing it because it's not actually keeping them there.

Whereas, if we cared about the shop, if we knew that this place is the place that lovingly serves us that niche that I'm looking for, we might stay there. I feel like Shudder have done this really well. Bravo, Shudder.

I see a future where we have just maybe one Netflix, one big streamer. Maybe two. And the content in those won't be so filtered by algorithms. Not if they're doing it correctly. Because I think whoever can bring back a true sense of collective culture will come out a massive winner (and that requires us seeing a lot of the same things). And almost everyone will subscribe to one of those. And then we'll have our little extra subscriptions. We'll have more Shudders catering to those things we love, the niches. Clear brands for different types of shows. Different types of movies. And we'll care about the homes, not just individual shows.

And it's funny because I feel like, on old cable TV, we kind of had that.

Streaming is such a great delivery method. But I think throwing everything into one warehouse with a tiny window just comes with too many discoverability difficulties. We know it's not quite working. They know that.

But I do think there is a post-streamer streaming model. I'm looking forward to that.