Thanks for this. There is a key nuance that you’re missing in my argument.

No legacy media company, Netflix or IP holder is going to license their IP to an open source or niche model because those will be built and owned by a mix of pirates and fans. Pirates can train these LLMs with third-party IP and without the permission of those third parties. Fandom is agency. Agency is piracy. So fandom is piracy.

The problem with Netflix owning more IP is that it’s as much if not moreso in the business of defending that IP or licensing that IP than monetizing that IP within its own ecosystem. Also, it’s struggles with games do not suggest that it would be “better” if it had more IP.

Last, I agree that “gaming is fundamentally more powerful than any other medium is because play offers levels of immersion that no other medium can match”. I am saying more that gaming is fundamentally more powerful than any other DTC model online—Netflix included—because it is far more sophisticated in how it drives and monetizes engagement. Netflix’s model is built around growing subscribers and driving subscriber engagement to reduce churn. Gaming offers far more tools for monetizing subscribers and is built around a fundamentally different exchange of value.

On this point, I think Netflix has made purposeful technological and UX/UI choices not to go down the same path as gaming. But it needs to find additional sources of engagement and revenue analogous to those found in gaming. It’s an odd crossroads for them. I don’t know if they have a solution. I think a big splashy acquisition of IP that requires two years of regulatory review and puts it competition (HBO Max, Paramount Skydance) on the sidelines buys them the time to focus on that problem.