Existing media companies will either need to adopt AI so they aren’t undercut by AI-first companies, or derive their value from things AI can’t replicate: appointment viewing, live events, exclusive IP, or counter-positioning as exclusively “human-made.” This is part of the reason why sports rights continue to grow more expensive. Creators will... See more

The one big advantage professionally-produced content has, however, is that it tends to be more evergreen and have higher re-watchability. That’s where we come back to the library: implicit in Netflix making library content more valuable is that library content has longevity in a way that YouTube content does not. That, by extension, may speak to... See more

Notice, though, the trouble this Internet reality presents to Netflix: if content is abundant and attention is scarce, it’s easier to sell attention than content; Netflix’s business model, though, is the exact opposite.

There are a lot of open questions about how GenAI will affect the media business (some of which I outlined in How Far Will AI Video Go? and a recent presentation). Most important, we don’t know how good the technology will get or to what degree consumers will accept it, and for which use cases. There are still critical legal questions around the... See more