Google's $75 million investment in A24 looks like a conservative research bet. It is not.

Together with YouTube's existing role as the engine of creator community and IP formation, the deal gives Google another position in the emerging "Internet Collaborative IP" production pipeline (H/T Colin & Samir)—from creator ideation through production tools to paid downloads—leaving Netflix and other streamers to wait for whatever streaming rights are left over.

Netflix's $600 million InterPositive acquisition and its underperforming video podcast experiment suggest it is solving the wrong problem.

The real threat is not production cost. It is the community architecture that drives the next generation of content, and Netflix has not built any of it.