But what if I want a faster horse?

What this is describing is not what the Ford quote is talking about. Netflix and all the rest didn't TikTokify because they were trying to create some massive visionary innovation, but the opposite.

They did it because it's more profitable to shovel slop than to distribute quality. Quality content is expensive to make. Slop isn't. The way you do that is by hypnotizing people with addiction. To do that you have to have control over what people see and use algorithms to optimize that to "maximize engagement." You need your users mindlessly scrolling, not searching and categorizing and exploring. You need to disengage the neocortex and engage the brain stem.

TikTok is being copied by everyone because they nailed this formula better than anyone. They didn't invent it, just perfected it. I'd say Meta/Facebook invented it, which is why Zuckerberg should be known as the man who destroyed the Internet.

The next step beyond TikTok is a 100% AI generated algorithmic feed. Drop the human creators entirely. Everyone gets a personalized feed of low-quality AI slop tuned for maximum engagement.

Addiction is the best business model.

Part of the problem specifically with Netflix is that they lost the rights to most of the good stuff, or at least the stuff that everyone wants to see, because the Disneys of the world set up their own streaming services and pulled their content from Netflix.

So in a way Netflix had to learn how to push slop. Because they can't make their own Star Wars or MCU or Friends or whatever. It's just not easy to build a catalog of reliably-profitable franchises. Especially when many of those franchises were born decades before Netflix even existed.

Even the good stuff Netflix has (like say Black Mirror) isn't going to be enough to keep customers unless they get people watching some slop.

"So in a way Netflix had to learn how to push slop. Because they can't make their own Star Wars or MCU or Friends or whatever. It's just not easy to build a catalog of reliably-profitable franchises. Especially when many of those franchises were born decades before Netflix even existed."

They could try. The budget for the first seasons of Friends was the same as any other sitcom of that era.

Sitcoms would be perfect for streaming companies but non of them seem to get that for some reason.

> Sitcoms would be perfect for streaming companies but non of them seem to get that for some reason.

The second longest (by episode count) non-animated, scripted original series at Netflix is a sitcom, The Upshaws. I’m not aware of any streaming service that doesn't do original sitcoms.

I’m not convinced, though, that sitcoms are all that great a fit for streaming—I don't think any genre other than maybe talk shows has been more dependent for initial launch on pre-streaming broadcast/cable viewership habits and viewing block placement to catch people already watching already-successful similarly targeted shows.

Exactly, Netflix should do more and release a new episode every week to make sure people keep subscribing!

The problem is that you can't parasitically launch a sitcom off on streaming by placing it in a subsequent timeslot to an establish sitcom with similar audience targeting. At least not with the present streaming model, though I suppose if streamers would bother to make more advanced autoplay viewing models than by-series you could do something similar.