I don't intend for this blog to be nothing but commentary about Netflix. I promise. But this is the intersection of business and technology and art, so it's got my attention.

HBR :: Grant McCracken :: Will Netflix Flourish Where Hollywood Failed?

So does Netflix have an edge? Is there any reason to think they can flourish where so many have failed? The apparent answer is data. Netflix has lots and lots of data. They know what we watch, when we watch, where we stop watching, where we repeat a scene, where we reach for the fast-forward button, and most critically, when we break off and move on. They know which movies sell well at 8:00 on a Friday night and which ones we like to watch on Sunday afternoon. They can surmise which directors, writers, and stars produce the most watchable entertainment. They have magnificent data.

(1) Yes, data is their edge. (2) They don't need to make better content than everyone else. They just need to make content good enough to give them bargaining chips when they strike deals with other content makers and distributors.

And that's a tragedy. Netflix has so much data that they are going to be tempted to climb into the creative tent and start offering "advice."

This is almost exactly wrong. Or not wrong, but useless. Producers are constantly offering "advice." The difference is that Netflix's advice will be based on numbers, while other producers' advice is based on sophistry and illusion. ("Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Consign it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.")

They can claim to know exactly what works and what does not. Well, sorry, no. Knowing that something works leaves us a long way from knowing why something works. And this leaves us a long way from knowing how to reproduce it in another movie. The only thing this data can be absolutely sure to produce is arrogance. We have seen this mistake before.

Yes, they can claim to know exactly what works and what does not and why. Or they could not. There's nothing inherent in a quantitative approach that rules out epistemic humility. In fact, there's much to quantitative reasoning that makes it more humble. When's the last time you saw someone run a t-test on an executive's intuitions or gut feelings?

This means that whatever the data say, Netflix cannot tell a director, "We need a fight scene here." And it really can't say, "We need a fight scene at the 14-minute mark." Doing so, will not only drive creatives away, but viewers as well. As Henry Jenkins has said, viewers are newly sophisticated and critical. They can see formula a long way off. They can see plot mechanics the second they hit the screen. And the moment this happens, they are off.

Hold on a minute. Why would you assume that Netflix's results would be more formulaic than the traditional Hollywood approach? Humans can only sort out cause and effect when there are a couple of moving pieces. Computerized pattern recognition can do so in much more complicated environments. Doesn't it stand to reason that Netflix's discovered patterns will be more complex, and therefore less formulaic and noticeable, than the patterns that intuition- and tradition-guided producers hew to?

Netflix, therefore, will have to temper their itch to intervene. Naturally, we are not talking carte blanche here. We are not saying that we take any artist and turn them loose. Because we know a great deal of capital has been squandered by creatives keen to prove how artistic and avant garde they are. No, what we need are culture producers who are — in the language of Goldilocks — "just right." They need to be able to tell a story and obey some of the story-telling conventions even as they do new and interesting things to break and bend those conventions. Only then will painters paint and patrons watch.

The advice in this post true for every company producing creative output. It's masquerading as being specifically about Netflix. It's not only more general than it's made out to be, it's arguably less applicable to Netflix than to their competitors.

I'm also more than a little weary of critiques being made against numerical decision making without any consideration of the faults of the non-numeric decision making it's displacing.