Net ix’s B andersnatch and the battle of services for consumer screen time The platformisation of interfaciality and infrastructuralisation of streaming services
Lucas Prado Amaral Student ID: 12239615
MA New Media and Digital Culture University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: dr. Alex Gekker Second reader: dr. Marc D. Tuters
June 2019
Abstract
On December 28, 2018, streaming service Net ix released an interactive lm entitled Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, a standalone episode of science– ction series Black Mirror, presenting viewers with interactive features that actively impact the lm's narrative. Bandersnatch came about in a time when many big companies from the entertainment and media world, such as Disney and Apple, announced the future launch of their own streaming service, posing as direct competitors to Net ix. By taking a theoretical bifocal approach, as proposed by Plantin et al., I take Net ix as my object of study and analyse it from the perspective of platform studies and infrastructure studies, in that they reveal the streaming service's dual nature. As a contribution to the eld, I propose two phenomena: the platformisation of interfaciality, presenting new formats for storytelling, and allowing for the collection of more user data; and the infrastructuralisation of streaming services, whether through creating devices that support its online operations, or connecting to a network that reaches a global-scale. As the streaming race gets more competitive for Net ix, I analyse the ways in which Bandersnatch becomes a useful strategy for the company against other services, in terms of: (1) all of the behavioural metrics it yields, (2) new possibilities for revenue sources (such as product placement), and (3) consuming more of users’ screen time.
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Table of Content
1. Introduction 4 1.1. Net ix's Golden Age 4 1.2. Net ix through the lens of platform and infrastructure studies 6 1.3. Structure outline of the thesis 9
2. Theoretical Framework 12 2.1. A theoretical bifocal approach 12 2.2. Through the lens of platform studies 13 2.2.1. What is a Net ix Original? 16 2.2.2. Previous works on the phenomenon of platformisation 17 2.2.3. The platformisation of interfaciality 19 2.3. Through the lens of infrastructure studies 20 2.3.1. Vertical integration 21 2.3.2. The infrastructuralisation of streaming services and the Stack model 23 2.4. Methodological approach to the case studies 24
3. You’ll have to see it through to the end 27 3.1. Silicon Valley meets Hollywood - Interactivity and Net ix 29 3.2. The importance of behavioural metrics to Net ix 33 3.3. Programming new experiences and recording them all 35 3.4. Is the future of entertainment interactive? 39
4. The Net ix e ect - the golden age of streaming services 41 4.1. The Net ix vs. Spielberg dilemma - if you can't beat them, join them! 43 4.2. The wave of direct-to-consumer services soon joining the streaming race 45 4.3. Worldwide distribution - that matters! 49 4.4. The battle for consumer screen time 54
5. Concluding remarks 58 5.1. Interactivity yields more data concerning users' behavioural patterns 59 5.2. Interactivity can make way to new revenue sources 59 5.3. Interactivity can aid Net ix in the battle for consumer screen time 60 5.4. Possible avenues for future research 60
Bibliography 62
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1. I n troduction
1.1. N et ix's Golden Age
In 1997, computer programmer Reed Hastings, alongside tech marketing executive Marc Randolph, founded a DVD–by–mail rental company dedicated to distributing a selected array of movie titles to its group of subscribers. Based in Scotts Valley, California, the company was idealised to become the "A mazon.com of something besides books" (Keating 17); its founders, in search of a product that was both portable and durable – so as to not get damaged when being mailed –, opted for DVDs, a media storage format that was somewhat still of a rarity then. Betting on the promise of video–on–demand success and seeking to shift their operations to an Internet–based service, they decided to re ect their beliefs of the World Wide Web one day supporting both the rental and streaming of lms on their choice for the company's name: Net ix (Esler, 136). The "Net" derives from Internet, whereas " ix" alludes to the word flicks, a slang for movies. Fast–forward to twenty–two years later and Net ix has catapulted itself into a prominent position within the media and entertainment industries, and as of April 2019, has amassed a total of 148.8 million subscriptions worldwide (Pallotta n. pag.), distributing licensed content as well as having their own original production – which includes movies, series and documentaries. Responsible for consuming a staggering 15% of global internet tra c alone (Binder n. pag.), Net ix has established itself as a leading gure in the world of Internet entertainment and streaming video, operating in over 190 countries across the globe.
Back in 2005, talking to Inc., an American magazine dedicated to small businesses and startups, Hastings said that their goal was to change the entertainment industry just as done by HBO, and that they wanted "producers and directors to be able to nd the right audience, to change the experience of helping people nd movies they love" (Hastings n. pag). Looking at the performance of some of Net ix's original series and lms, as well as the reaction from major entertainment companies to its success, serves as an indication of the impact that the streaming service (or, ‘streamer’ as often referred to in the industry) has had in how people mainly consume content nowadays. According to the company's latest quarterly earnings report, published in January 17, 20191, the drama series You (2018) was on track to be watched by over 40 million member households within the rst four weeks of being released on Net ix (the report was published three weeks after the release, hence the estimation for the following week). The show, which originally premiered as a linear series to audiences in the U.S. on Lifetime, had only been
1 Net ix's latest quarterly earnings report can be found in the following link, contained in a letter to the company's shareholders: https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/ les/doc_ nancials/quarterly_reports/2018/q4/01/FINAL-Q4-18-Shareholder- Letter.pdf
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watched by an average of approximately 1.1 million viewers during its run on cable television (Porter, Netflix reveals viewership n. pag.), with its viewership growing exponentially after being released internationally on Net ix. The rise in the show's ratings performance was so signi cant that it resulted in the streamer picking up the second season and turning into a Net ix original2 (Otterson n. pag.). This makes You yet another show in a list of productions that had initially been aired on a di erent network, but ended up becoming a Net ix original, such as the case of Designated Survivor and L ucifer.
This scenario points out not only to how the streamer's original productions have been doing well, but also how this success has been achieved on an international level, with original productions all over the world and not only limited to the U.S. territory. For instance, British show Sex Education is also expected to amass the mark of 40 million homes watching the title within its rst four weeks of exhibition, whereas Spanish drama Elite was viewed in more than 20 million households worldwide for that same duration, after its debut (Porter, Netflix reveals viewership n. pag.). These ratings re ect how these productions speak not only to one country's speci c audience, but rather to a fan base constituted of people from di erent countries, forming a cross–cultural fan network. Meanwhile, Net ix's original movies have also been a source of great success for the company, as shown by critically–acclaimed Roma (2018), by Alfonso Cuaron, and Bird Box (2018), by Susanne Bier. In fact, Net ix reported on its Twitter account that Bird Box (Figure 1) had been watched by over 45 million accounts only in its rst week (Galuppo n. pag.),
2 The concept of what turns a series or a movie into a Net ix Original will be later explained in the following chapter, under 2.2.1. “What is a Net ix Original?”
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and according to the aforementioned quarterly earnings report, was expected to be seen by over 80 million member households in the rst four weeks after its release (for the same reason as You, this number was an estimation given to the report being published before the completion of said four weeks).
1.2. N et ix through the lens of platform and infrastructure studies
Another show that has also found great success once it was picked up by Net ix is science– ction series Black Mirror, known for its bleak and dystopian–themed episodes concerning the social implications of ubiquitous technology in contemporary life. With its two rst seasons premiering on British television through Channel 4, the show was added to Net ix's catalogue and then purchased by the streamer in 2015, making it another one of its original productions that was initially aired in a di erent network (Goldberg n. pag.). With one Christmas episode and two other series following its purchase by Net ix, the show drew further attention back in October 1, 2018, when nancial and media organisation Bloomberg reported that the science– ction series was set to launch a choose–your–own–adventure style episode, in which the viewer would be able to "choose their own storylines" within the narrative (Shaw n. pag.). These predictions were con rmed later that year, on December 28, when Net ix released the series' latest iteration, an interactive lm entitled Bandersnatch (2018), inviting viewers to actively participate in the decision-making process of the narrative. This new feature points to a bigger phenomenon than just being yet another shocking episode from the ctional series. Its very existence, as well as the endless possibilities that this interactivity allows, is only made possible due to the nature of what Net ix really is: that is, besides being a media company, the streamer is at its core a digital platform. The use of the term 'platform' to address online services that act as intermediaries of content has been greatly covered by researcher Tarleton Gillespie, who has pointed out how the term has been appropriated by the services to describe themselves, as well as by the public discourse. According to Gillespie, this discursive shift is bene cial for these services, once it downplays their liability for what users do when navigating their environments, being "rewarded for facilitating expression but not liable for its excesses" (356). If we consider this scenario by taking into account the contributions made by platform studies, we begin to understand some key concepts inherent to the logic of digital platforms, such as the planned design of its a ordances, the collection of user data through its application programming interfaces (APIs), and the programmability of its services. Lev Manovich highlighted programmability as the most fundamental quality of not only digital platforms, but of all new media objects. According to him, these objects are essentially formed by digital codes, and as such, they are numerical representations, which renders them "subject to algorithmic manipulation. (...) In short, media becomes programmable" (Manovich 49). Furthermore, the way that streaming services – most notably with Net ix – operate also shows that they are supported by an infrastructure that supports their operationalisation. This translates into creating gateways and paths of communication between hardware and software components, as well as making use of a dispersed network of physical data centres to allow a wide outreach in their services.
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Plantin et al. have recently proposed to analyse digital media objects through a theoretical framework that articulated both platform studies and infrastructure studies. They do so in order to address how platforms are acquiring infrastructural characteristics (such as getting more ubiquitous and embedded in our daily lives to the point of becoming essential to us), as well as to point out how established and new infrastructures are also migrating to platform–based services. They call these processes as the infrastructuralisation of platforms, and the platformisation of infrastructures, respectively. I propose building upon the aforementioned works and taking this analysis further in terms of adding two key processes to this scenario: the platformisation of interfaciality, and the i nfrastructuralisation of streaming services.
As for the rst, this will be an expansion on the previous work done on platformisation. As services like Net ix take the shape of digital platforms, they also condition the kind of content they host according to their qualities as platforms, so as to better serve their interests. Previous work on platformisation includes that of Anne Helmond, who discussed the platformisation of the web, referring to the rise of platforms as "the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web" (2), following the transformation of social network websites into platforms – such as the case with Facebook. David B. Nieborg and Thomas Poell also approached the concept of platformisation and applied it to cultural production, so as to show how the products and services hosted by such platforms are rendered as being more and more contingent on these platforms. In this process, these "contingent cultural commodities" also become modular in their design, allowing for their constant remodulation, "informed by data ed user feedback" (Nieborg & Poell 2). Annemarie Navar–Gill is another researcher who has discussed the e ects of platformisation, in her case applied to creativity, investigating how this data–driven environment has a ected screenwriters in their creative writing processes. My contribution to this eld will be by focusing on platformisation applied to the interfacial regime in Net ix and other streaming services, and how it allows for new ways for people to interact with cultural products. Ultimately, what I am to show is how this platformised interaction allows for not only new formats to be produced and distributed by these platforms, but also how it a ords them mechanisms of collecting more user data. Net ix had experimented before with other interactive products, aimed mostly at children’s programming. However Bandersnatch con gures a rst iteration of what is probably the streamer's bet on innovative ways to articulate storytelling and user engagement with cultural products. Given that participatory and interactive media practices have always been associated with the existence of video games, it is also worth approaching studies on game design, especially in what concerns the matter of programmability (Bogost and Montfort). In regard to how this interactivity a ects the narrative of these cultural productions, I will also refer to Espen Aarseth's ergodic literature, in which he describes open and dynamic stories, whose literary sequence depends on the active participation of the viewer. Moreover, the possibilities a orded to streaming services in their condition as platforms also point to a possible explanation on why so many established media and entertainment companies, such as WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney, and Apple are venturing into the streaming business (Lee n. pag.). In light of this, I aim to show how platforms are becoming the main preferred business model in the entertainment world, given all that is a orded to these companies by having their own direct-to-consumer services.
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As for the second process that I highlight in this analysis – the infrastructuralisation of streaming services – I propose to frame the discussion concerning Net ix and streaming services through the lens of infrastructure studies. Plantin et al., in their work, introduced the concept of the infrastructuralisation of platforms, presenting the cases of Facebook, Google and the Open Web. In this, I agree with Annemarie Navar-Gill in that she di erentiates the industrial conditions of other media industries - such as Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. - to that of Net ix, as it is "directly articulated to legacy television industry structures" (4). Therefore, I propose to analyse the concept of infrastructuralisation applied to streaming services. This shift is important if we consider that these online services are operating thanks to a complex and physical infrastructure that allows for the various components to communicate, whether between themselves or with external agents (such as the user). Net ix, in its condition as a video streaming platform and content producing company, similarly exerts the role of a complex and multi–layered infrastructure. In the case of Bandersnatch, its operation depends on having devices that support interactive features, as well as data centres that store the data that is collected. Furthermore, this infrastructuralisation also facilitates the distribution of content to a wider global audience, which can be one of the reasons why so many entertainment companies like Disney are joining the streaming industry. Net ix's original productions have been marketed and released simultaneously at an international level, with productions from all over the world achieving great success abroad: Spain's Elite and Money Heist; UK's Sex Education ; Germany's Dark; and US' Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why, just to name a few. Companies like Disney and WarnerMedia already possess a big enough infrastructure to allow them to operate in the same way. Moreover, the news about the future launch of their own streaming services are also tied to their e orts in vertically integrating their content production and distribution chain, by means of merging with other media companies - such as with Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox, and WarnerMedia's merger with AT&T. To this, I will also approach Benjamin Bratton’s model of The Stack. Speaking of planetary–scale computational systems, Bratton proposes a vertical layered model to describe digital platforms, which challenges traditional forms of political geographies. I argue that this con guration is also applicable to the context of streaming services in the entertainment world, as they consolidate services that vertically merge content production and distribution on a multinational level, challenging traditional ways in which traditional entertainment companies operate their services.
This thesis thus takes Net ix as its main object of study in considering my proposed two phenomena: the platformisation of interfaciality and the infrastructuralisation of streaming services. In order to address this discussion, I will approach two case studies that involve recent events concerning Net ix and the streaming industry as a whole, which can give some insight on the current state of this business and potential predictions for the future. The rst case study will revolve around Net ix's interactive lm, Bandersnatch. The second case study will focus on the wave of big media and entertainment companies that are joining the streaming race, more speci cally WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney and Apple. Both case studies provide fruitful evidence to address both sides of Net ix - as a platform and an infrastructure -, and can be developed into a broader framework of discussion to understand how Net ix has bene ted from both worlds in becoming the biggest reference for online streaming video.
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With that in mind, I put forth the following research question: In what ways can Bandersnatch be seen as a strategy for Net ix against the big media and entertainment companies joining the streaming race? Having a concise research question is useful in order to address some concrete topics concerning the two case studies that are being analysed. In answering this question, the analysis expands to a wider discussion of the overarching themes from platform and infrastructure studies, and also relates to the two phenomena proposed in this thesis, namely the p latformisation of interfaciality and the i nfrastructuralisation of streaming services.
1.3. S tructure outline of the thesis
This thesis consists of two complementing parts, with the rst half being dedicated to the set up of the discussion – introduction, theoretical framework and methodological approach –, and the second focusing on the execution – empirical analysis and discussion, as well as the conclusion. The introductory chapter provides a rst contact with the object of study and the subject matter, namely Net ix and, more broadly, the streaming industry, as well as presenting the research questions. The following chapter serves to create a theoretical framework in which I ground the arguments I put forward in the discussion. I make use of trade press articles as the main source from which I draw information from reliable and inside sources about current events that are related to Net ix and the streaming industry, speci cally those that concern the two case studies analysed in this thesis. All of these sources will serve to give factual information which I tie back to theoretical debates, in order to situate my research within the academic eld of new media and platform studies. The theoretical framework chapter starts by explaining the theoretical bifocal approach from Plantin et al., in which they propose to analyse current digital media objects through the lens of both platform and infrastructure studies, a cross-articulation of both theoretical strands. I then go more in depth on each eld, rstly looking into the contributions from platform studies, explaining some key concepts, such as programmability and platformisation, and ultimately relating to what I argue as the platformisation of interfaciality. Secondly, I look into scholarly work from infrastructure studies, approaching some works on vertical integration and presenting my contribution, that is, the infrastructuralisation of streaming services, which I relate to the model of The Stack, as proposed by Benjamin Bratton. Finally, the chapter ends with a section on the methodological approach of this thesis, in which I outline how the research and analysis of the case studies are carried out.
The analysis and discussion in this thesis are structured and divided thematically, following the case studies presented here. Therefore, I divide this part into two empirical chapters. The rst one (comprising the third chapter of the thesis) is focused on the case study of Net ix's interactive lm, Black Mirror:Bandersnatch, with the main focus being on analysing the di erent possibilities - for the user and for Net ix - that are a orded by the platformisation of interfaciality, that is, having the interaction between the user and the service being adjusted to the logic of the platform, and how that in turn reveals an infrastructuralisation of the streamer in order to support such actions. I rst contextualise Bandersnatch within the company's history with algorithmic curation
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of user feedback and its rst experiments with the interactive format, already introducing key points such as interfaciality and programmability in digital platforms. I relate the discussion on interactivity with the concept of the attention economy, in which users' attention becomes a commodity that is consumed by digital platforms like Net ix. I also reinforce the importance given by the company to behavioural metrics, and learning viewing habits from their users. At this stage, I point to how Net ix is making use of a complex infrastructure in order to operate its interactive features and collect these behavioural metrics, for instance by adjusting the content to a network of devices that are compatible with this format. I then turn to the programmability and recording of choices in Bandersnatch, and how this format not only permits open, non-linear storylines to be distributed in Net ix, but also how it a ords the company the possibility to register users' preference and patterns. Finally, I conclude the chapter by saying that even though Net ix is doubling down on more interactive shows, it is still too early to assume that this format will become the main default for streaming services. However, this information could potentially be used to determine what kind of content is produced in the future, and also allow for marketing strategies to be put into action, such as product placement.
The second empirical chapter (the fourth of the thesis) is focused on the second case study, revolving around the recent news involving big media and entertainment companies launching their own streaming services, which sheds light on how these companies seem to be adjusting their user-service interfaciality to the context of a digital platform. This, in part, is a reaction to the infrastructuralisation of streaming services, which a ord them certain operations that leverages their strategies on an international level, meshing with the infrastructure of traditional entertainment companies. I rst give some contextualisation on the streaming industry and its main services, Net ix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, and already introduce the newcomers soon-to-be joining this race. I approach the discussion around the medium format of Net ix products, such as the blurred line between lm and television, and follow with the analysis of four services that are soon joining the industry, namely WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney, and Apple, indicating that platforms are becoming the preferred business model for the entertainment world. These companies pose a real threat to Net ix, both for their force in content production, but also due to their already existing infrastructure, strengthened by acquiring and merging with other companies that vertically integrate its services with networks of distribution. In that, I present the discussion on how Net ix, as an Internet-based digital platform that is built over a networked infrastructure, distributes its original content instantly to a worldwide audience, across 190 countries. In light of this, I bring to the discussion the theoretical model of The Stack as a framework of analysis for Net ix and these services, in that they have become multi-layered, complex infrastructures, vertically articulating di erent means of production and distribution that make it easier to reach a global audience, and therefore challenges traditional market strategies from creative industries. Finally, I conclude by saying that what these companies are ultimately competing for is consumers' screen time, and their attention, and therefore popular video games such as F ortnite also pose as a threat to Net ix in this internet entertainment era.
The concluding remarks come in chapter ve, in which I address the research question by pointing out three ways in which Net ix’s Bandersnatch can be seen as a strategy for Net ix against
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the threat brought about by WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney, and Apple releasing their own streaming services. The interactive features in Bandersnatch yield more data concerning users’ behavioural patterns, once they are met with several questions throughout the lm about having to choose between two di erent human behaviours. Moreover, it also opens the way for new revenue possibilities, such as product placement, which could allow the streamer to create a basic subscription plan for free, so that it can lure more users to its platform and compete with other free online services like Facebook and Fortnite. Finally, Bandersnatch can be a good strategy for Net ix in terms of helping in the battle for consumer screen time, in that it requires an active engagement from the viewer, thus demanding more of their attention than a non-interactive programme would.
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2. T h eoretical Framework
2.1. A theoretical bifocal approach
There is no denying that Net ix has established itself as a leading gure within the entertainment world. Its entrenchment in daily life has somewhat de ned this generation's way of consuming audiovisual products, now presented in a video-on-demand and commercial breaks-free model that cuts the cord from traditional television broadcasters, inviting audiences to binge-watch their favourite shows in one sitting. Alongside other online on-demand services such as Amazon and Spotify, Net ix has contributed to the forti cation of the golden age of streaming, more speci cally in regard to audiovisual content. While still having the majority of its catalogue being populated by licensed content from external studios, the streamer has been clearly investing more and more on its original productions, an increase that has coincided with a recent wave of big media companies announcing the launch of their own streaming services in the next few years, such as Disney and Apple (Lee n. pag.). To better understand this scenario, this thesis uses Net ix as its object of study and approaches two case studies in order to explore recent changes in the streaming industry. I will do so through the theoretical prism of platform and infrastructure studies, as a contribution to the current understanding of digital media objects within the eld of new media.
The aim with this analysis is not to address the aesthetic and creative aspects of the shows and lms distributed by Net ix, but rather to focus on the role of the streamer as a digital platform, a web-based and data-driven service, that also makes use of a complex infrastructure that supports its world-wide operationalisation. Therefore, in order to address the two phenomena that I put forth in this thesis (namely, the platformisation of interfaciality and the infrastructuralisation of streaming services) , I will approach contributions made by platform and infrastructure studies, integrating both so as to reveal the dual nature of Net ix as both a platform and an infrastructure. In this, it proves most useful to analyse this topic within an approach previously presented by Jean-Christophe Plantin, Carl Lagoze, Paul N Edwards and Christian Sandvig, in their paper Infrastructure studies meet platform studies in the age of Google and Facebook. Plantin et al. proposed to adapt the lens of both approaches in what they called a 'theoretical bifocal', a cross-articulation of both theoretical strands in order to understand current digital media objects and its impacts in contemporary societies. For such, I will rst brie y explain why this approach is fruitful to this thesis, and then expand on the conceptualisation of the terms platformisation and infrastructuralisation, as to understand their relevance to the analysis of Net ix.
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In their paper, Plantin et al. begin by positing that, in the age of digital technologies and the Internet, two theoretical strands have been most often employed by media scholars to address the new media objects that have emerged: platform studies and infrastructure studies. On one hand, the former has been focused on computing and software devices, highlighting features such as programmability and accessibility of user data. On the other hand, the latter has been focused on sociotechnical systems that are both widely shared and essential, shedding light on their ubiquity and reliability. What Plantin et al. argue is that this set of new digital objects (such as in the case of their case studies with Google and Facebook) exemplify features that can be found in both types of literature. Instead of having them as two separate epistemologies, articulating both seems to yield a fruitful framework to better address what is currently happening with these services and the larger market in which they are inserted. In this logic, they talk about the "platformisation of infrastructures", as well as the "infrastructuralisation of platforms", in a process in which these big media and digital corporations take the shape of platforms and their a ordances, while also making themselves embedded in daily life and increasingly essential to us (Plantin et al. 293-307).
The above is also the case, as I propose, with Net ix and the streaming business in general. Starting as a DVD–by–mail rental company, the streamer evolved into a web–based service that enjoys the a ordances of a digital platform, such as programmability (Manovich) – which is made even more explicit with interactive products like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch –, and collection of user data (not only through its instant reaction features once the viewer nishes a series or a lm, but also with the storage of user engagement and action throughout, again as shown in the case of Bandersnatch) . In addition to that, Net ix also operates its service across countries around the world, a service that is facilitated by the Open Web, but that also counts with a complex and dispersed physical infrastructure that supports this operation. This aspect, in conjunction with its ubiquity and embeddedness in daily life, renders Net ix as a service with a structure resembling that of the sociotechnical systems Plantin et al. referred to (power grids, railroads, and so forth), that is, an infrastructure on which people rely and depend - for instance, for the consumption of lms and series, or looking from a di erent angle, as a means for leisure. The wave of big media companies in the likes of Disney and Apple that are now joining the streaming race provides evidence of how Net ix has caused an impact on the entertainment world, and how its in uence is also perceived as being a benchmark of a new trend of watching audiovisual productions. It is not only useful, but also necessary, to regard Net ix as both a platform and an infrastructure. Therefore, the two case studies that I approach in the following empirical chapters are both analysed and discussed through the prism of both theoretical strands, so as to show how Net ix's dual nature permeates all of the company's operations.
2.2. T hrough the lens of platform studies
The rst part of this analysis will focus on assessing Net ix in its condition as a platform. The use of the word platform in itself is already signi cant due to its underlying connotations, and the historical context in which it is inserted. Tarleton Gillespie has widely contributed to the study of
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platforms, reviewing the di erent semantic meanings attributed to the word, among of which there is the computational one, the most recent, to which he de nes as being an infrastructure designed and intended to support a certain type of action or application (whether it is hardware or software). According to Gillespie, all the four categories that he outlines share a same connotation, one that mainly stems from the oldest meaning highlighted, namely the architectural one, used to describe an elevated surface or plateau, whether human-built or naturally formed, that can be of generic use or serve a speci c purpose. This shared connotation, as he lays out, is that of "a ‘raised level surface’ designed to facilitate some activity that will subsequently take place" (Gillespie 350), and for that reason, the employment of the word suggests an egalitarian and accessible quality to the services it describes, promising to support those who use them. This discursive approach was introduced to digital industries mainly in the 1990s when tech corporation Microsoft started to employ the term platform to describe its '.Net' web services, applications (such as Windows Media) and even its Windows operating system (Gillespie 351). Later on, in the mid-2000s, the meaning of the term was expended when Tim O'Reilly used it to describe the concept of 'Web 2.0', covering the notion of web-based applications that focused on user-generated content as being platforms, thus revealing key concepts such as "the provision of connection, programmability, and data exchange" (Plantin et al 296).
Expanding on these features, the notion of participatory media has recurrently been present in the discussions brought about by platform studies. Benkler draws attention to a collection of production practices which he called 'commons-based peer production', of which he nominates free and open-source software as being the quintessential instance of this new era (Benkler 63). According to him, this kind of production system would not be 'hierarchically assigned', but rather decentralised and collaborative, forming a type of networked environment connecting dispersed individuals. He also points out that the peer production of information - in services such as Wikipedia - are facilitated as computing systems become cheaper and more ubiquitous. Furthermore, participatory media have also been essential for the creation of a content distribution network, in which the need for highly expensive distribution channels was no longer necessary, once users' computers with standard Internet connections enabled the sharing, delivery and storage of digital content at a larger scale (Benkler 63-85). It is this content distribution network discussed by Benkler that represents Net ix's infrastructuralisation, with its Internet-based service connecting to customers all over the world.
Another media scholar who contributed to the debates around participatory media was Henry Jenkins, while also introducing two other concepts: that of collective intelligence, and media convergence. According to him, the latter is a process that should be regarded not only as a technological one, but also as representing a cultural shift. This convergence culture results in content being dispersed through di erent media platforms, which highlights how the focus has been shifted towards encouraging consumers "to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content" (Jenkins 3). Furthermore, Jenkins argues that older notions of media spectators as being passive are getting left behind, once media producers and consumers start to interact more directly (although this interaction is not always an even and balanced one). All of these changes do not replace older media with emerging ones, despite what was initial thought of
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the digital revolution - as theatre and the radio continued to exist after cinema and technology came about, respectively. Instead, there is a shift, a convergence of these older formats into new technologies, since these mediums have established themselves as "satisfying some core human demand, it continues to function within the larger communication options" (Jenkins 14) - this human demand being entertainment, for instance. With the proliferation of mobile phones and portable digital technologies, media becomes present everywhere. Cell phones cease to be mere communication devices, but also used for playing games, listening to music, searching for information on the Internet, and watching movies - which explains why online services and digital platforms launch their own mobile apps, as in the case of Net ix. Thus, this convergence culture not only changes the way media is being produced, but also the way that is being consumed. In having this convergence culture blur the lines between lms, video games and streaming content, for instance, in a malleable platform device, paves the way for the creation of a hybrid media such as Bandersnatch.
All of the above is to say that these contributions have paved the way for a better understanding of how platforms came to be within a wider historical and contextual framework. Benkler's discussion of participatory culture helps to shed light on key features from platforms, such as connectivity and peer production and consumption in a networked environment. Meanwhile, Jenkin's discussion around media convergence is useful to understand how platforms alter the traditional boundaries between those who produce cultural content and those who consume it. Another extremely important feature of digital platforms and new media objects, as proposed by Lev Manovich, is its possibility to be programmed in a certain way, that is, its programmability. Other authors who have discussed this quality are Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, who in their book, Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System, chose the Atari 2600 - known then as Atari VCS, the rst massively popular home video game console - as their main object of study. With its interchangeable cartridges, the Atari system made explicit Bogost's and Montfort's take on platforms as being essentially programmable, with a exibility that encourages creative production. For them, "platforms are layered—from hardware through operating system and into other software layers—and they relate to modular components, such as optional controllers and cards" (Montfort and Bogost 3). This modular power that is suggested by them is constantly being articulated between two integral parts of a platform: one unit that is core to the system, with low-variability; and another unit made up of heterogeneous elements, with high variability (Plantin et al. 298), which allow for this modulating power to be exerted on the users of such platforms.
The scope of works that have contributed to the eld of platform studies is far too broad and these previous remarks sought, in no way, to provide an extensive review of such. The goal was to lay out some key concepts pertaining the operating logics of platforms (such as connectivity, programmability, accessibility, the relationship between content producers and consumers, and so on). In the series forward of their book, Montfort and Bogost explain that the purpose of the Platform Studies book series is to analyse the underlying computing systems that support and shape the creative work that is distributed on them. As explained in the previous chapter, Net ix initially started out as DVD-by-rental company, later on migrating to a web-based service that
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mailed the DVDs to its members, and eventually producing and distributing its own original content, turning into the entertainment giant that it is today. However, there is some confusion as to what precisely is meant by a Net ix Original production, and thus requires further probing. I will brie y cover this matter, followed by a deeper focus on the phenomenon of platformisation and how it has been approached by scholars in the eld, which I will then add to with my own contribution to this discussion.
2.2.1. W hat is a Netflix Original?
On February 1, 2013, Net ix made available for streaming all 13 episodes of the entire rst season of House of Cards. The show, starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, was Net ix's rst original production, a kicking start to what Ted Sarandos (the company's chief content o cer) referred to as their goal "to become HBO faster than HBO can become us" (Hass n. pag.). Sarandos had set the goal to produce a minimum of ve original productions per year, dedicating in 2013 an amount of "$300 million in his budget for original programming" (Bishop n. pag.). Since then, the array of original Net ix productions, both series and movies, has grown far beyond their moderate initial goal of ve productions per year. Likewise, their designated budget for original programming has also increased dramatically: in 2018, the company spent approximately $12.04 billion for the production of original content, an increase of 35% when compared to 2017's budget of $8.9 billion (Spangler, Netflix spent $ n. pag.). Even though most of Net ix's catalogue is still in its majority made up of licensed material from other content providers, its high investment in original productions certainly points to a growing interest on the part of the streamer to make its original series and lms even more numerous.
But what essentially turns a series or a lm into a Net ix Original? This is how the streamer explains the licensing of TV series and movies in its help centre:
Net ix partners with content providers to license streaming rights for a variety of TV shows and movies. We also produce in-house or acquire exclusive rights to stream content such as Orange is the New Black, Stranger Things, BoJack Horseman, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and many more. These productions are called Net ix originals (Net ix Help Center, H ow does Netflix n. pag.).
Therefore, the productions that are branded with a "Net ix Original" tag speak much more to the distribution rights of that content than the actual production and making of it. Some of this material is made of content with which Net ix was involved from the very beginning, commissioning the production and purchasing the rights to exclusive streaming distribution, as in the case of Santa Clarita Diet, Dear White People, and Sex Education. In all these cases, Net ix is credited as the distributor, or original network. The same works for its original movies, as in the case of Bird Box, in which Net ix appears as the distributor, and 'Bluegrass Films' and 'Chris Morgan Productions' appear as the production companies. In addition, there are also the cases of productions that originally had a run on cable TV and were later purchased by Net ix, such as Arrested Development, Orphan Black, and Black Mirror. All these shows had their rst seasons broadcasted by a cable television channel, only being later acquired and exclusively streamed by the
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platform, making them Net ix Originals. One interesting case is that of Star Trek-Discovery, created and distributed by American broadcast television channel CBS, with exclusive international distribution by Net ix to 188 countries, excluding the US and Canada (StarTrek.com Sta n. pag.). Thus, this terminology seems to speak much more to exclusive distribution rights by the platform, and even then, having a show being tagged as a Net ix Original does not mean that it is guaranteed to be distributed by the streamer worldwide. The same aforementioned help centre page indicates that in some cases, the company was not able to secure the licensing rights of a show for all global regions, and in other cases, content deals made in countries before Net ix became available also impede the distribution of certain shows.
2.2.2. P revious works on the phenomenon of platformisation
The works that have contributed to the eld of platform studies have shown that these systems not only support, but also shape the kind of creative work that is distributed by them. Platforms have an operating logic with key shared features, such as programmability and data collection through APIs, and therefore these features are applied to such content in terms of how it is conveyed - and in turn, in how we experience it. That is to say that, in the case of audiovisual content, such as lms and television shows, there is a di erence in consuming them on traditional media apparatus (a movie screen in a theatre room, for instance, or a television in a living room), or on a web- or mobile-based application, that is, a platform such as Net ix. Recall Marshall McLuhan's famous quote “"the medium is the message” intended to shed light on the importance of focusing not on the content of the story itself, but rather on the properties of a medium, as they transform the human experience and sensation. Cultural content that is distributed on Net ix is therefore adjusted to the logic of the platform; or in other words, it is platformised.
This phenomenon known as platformisation has been previously covered by scholars in the media studies department. Anne Helmond took Facebook as a case study to understand its development into a platform by situating it within the larger context of social network sites developing into social media platforms. Helmond addresses the architectural model of platforms, focusing on their programmability, which is enabled by their software interface, an Application Programming Interface (API), which she points as what essentially turns these websites into platforms. While addressing their growing expansion into the web sphere, she explains how this programmability enables the rendering of external web data into a platform-ready format, so as to enable their collection by the platform. In this process, the result is what Helmond refers to as the platformisation of the web, that is, "the rise of the platform as the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web and the consequences of the expansion of social media platforms into other spaces online" (5). In other words, with the expansion of social media platforms to external websites in the online sphere (by means of association with third parties), the web is adjusted to the logic of the platform and its programmability, so as to render web data legible to these services, in a process of commodifying online user activity to serve the economic interests of platforms such as Facebook.
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In addition, the concept of platformisation has also been discussed in similar terms by David B. Nieborg and Thomas Poell, who signalised the extension of digital platforms into the web and app spheres as causing the platformisation of these ecosystems. Their focus is on how this process a ects the operations of cultural industries, resulting in what they call the platformisation of cultural production. Nieborg and Poell approach this discussion by explaining the larger market structures around which cultural production take shape, pointing out some key features:
(1) multisided market structures, in which a number of transnational corporations (GAFAM3) create a network of dispersed agents, from multiple end-users, advertisers, to intermediaries and cultural content producers (this ecosystem is similar to that described by the aforementioned scholars who theorised about participatory culture and media convergence); (2) platform governance, that is, how platforms in uence the power relations between end-users and content producers, for instance, through algorithmic curation, which a ords more visibility to certain items and news outlets; and (3) how the infrastructure of cultural production is transformed by platformisation, with features that favour data-driven processes aimed at optimising the content that is distributed and monetised in these platforms.
Due to all of the above reasons, Nieborg and Poell conclude by saying that cultural content becomes a commodity that is contingent, dependent on the platform, and informed by data ed user feedback. In other words, this cultural production is adjusted to the logic of the platform, in which "content is contingent, modularized, constantly altered, and optimized for platform monetization (...), which further destabilizes the neat separation between the modalities of production, circulation, and monetization" (Nieborg and Poell 8).
Finally, Annemarie Navar-Gill is another scholar who has approached the impact that the penetration of digital platforms into creative industries has had on cultural production. However, she proposes a new take on this discussion by a rming that this impact is di erent on the American television industry than to other media industries. Therefore, her focus is on streaming services - mainly Net ix - and how this market has impacted television production. Streaming services have often been framed as spaces that allow for more freedom of creativity for screenwriters. However, their operations are still informed and measured by quanti able data, as these services are essentially data-driven companies. The di erence, as pointed by Navar-Gill from interviews she conducted with several screenwriters, is that these content creators are often not communicated about the ratings during their writing process. She refers to di erent cases of screenwriters who used to work for cable television but migrated to a streaming service, such as one writer who had previously worked at SyFy and, at the time of the interview, was working for Hulu. She also mentions the case of Shonda Rhimes, known for being the creator of shows like Grey's Anatomy and Scandal. In both cases, the content creators argued that the streaming environment
3 GAFAM is an acronym for the ve most powerful digital platforms in the West: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft.
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was more creatively liberating, and that they did not feel regulated or limited by audience data points during their creative writing process (Navar-Gill 9-10). She concludes by saying that even though the discourse of streaming services providing more creative freedom still remains, platforms o er more precise information about audience engagement than traditional ratings do. This can be interpreted as more creative freedom during the construction of the story, as seen with the outburst of Net ix Original shows in the past couple of years (a willingness to take creative risks), but also enabling the company to quickly call o productions that do not perform well in viewership, for instance, the cancellation of its several Marvel series (D aredevil, I ron Fist and J essica Jones) .
2.2.3. T he platformisation of interfaciality
I propose to build upon the previous work done on the phenomenon of platformisation and add my contribution to it by looking at how this platformisation shapes the relationship between the user and the service, that is, how it shapes the interfacial regime that is established in Net ix. I refer to this process as the platformisation of interfaciality. For academic study, this phenomenon contributes to a larger understanding of the e ects of platformisation in how it concerns the user-platform interaction. Like many other works that have analysed how di erent iterations (e.g. the web, cultural production, and creativity) behave when adjusted to the logic of the platform, I will shed light on how the interfaciality experienced by users in Net ix is shaped and modulated according to the logic of the streamer, aiming at optimising the company's pro t. I will discuss this by addressing not only how it opens new possibilities for audiovisual narratives - such as with open and interactive stories - but also how it a ords new avenues for the streaming service for collecting more user data, improving their ways of assessing user behaviour and preference.
As I approach in the empirical case studies, the recent interactive releases by Net ix - as mainly seen in the case of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch - indicate that the streamer is experimenting with di erent narratives that are made possible once cultural content is adjusted to the logic of a platform. In other words, the streamer a ords this kind of production to be distributed due to its software interface (that is, its API), revealing the already mentioned feature of programmability, essential to the understanding of platforms. Even though these interactive narratives are still a minority when compared to the plethora of linear narratives in Net ix's catalogue, it does raise the question of whether the future of the streamer is to invest in more products of this kind. What it also shows is how Net ix can be operated as a games platform. This is an appropriate remark, given the importance of game studies to the overall eld of platform studies (mainly due to its contributions to the discussion of programmability). Espen Aarseth, a scholar in the eld of video game studies and digital literature, coined the term ergodic literature, a concept he used to describe narratives in which "nontrivial e ort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text" (1), for instance, by requiring an active engagement from the reader besides eye movement and the turning of pages. For Aarseth, this type of literature involves a decision-making process that makes certain parts and paths of the narrative more accessible - and others less - to the reader. It is a "labyrinth, a game, or an imaginary world, in which the reader can explore at will, get lost, discover secret paths,
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play around, follow the rules, and so on" (3). Moreover, Aarseth also points out how digital computing and automation have led to the creation of programmable genres consisting of "collections of interdependent fragments, with repeating loops, cross-references, and discontinuous 'jumps' back and forth between sections" (11). This framework is useful for understanding the kind of engagement that is expected from the user when watching interactive content, that is, an active one, choosing certain paths of the narrative over others. Fragmented yet interdependent parts that make up the entirety of the story once they are put together, o ering a multiplicity of storylines that are dependent on the choices made by the user. This kind of user engagement, or in other words, this interfacial regime is only made possible through the platform's API and its programmability features. However, these features a ord more than new possibilities for storytelling. As I show in the following chapters, the platformisation of interfaciality also allows for the company to scrape more data about their users' behaviours and viewing habits, which can in turn be capitalised by the service in order to make more informed decisions regarding their content and market strategies.
2.3. T hrough the lens of infrastructure studies
Following Plantin et al.'s theoretical bifocal approach, Net ix will also be regarded in its condition as an infrastructure, and how this infrastructuralisation plays out in the context of entertainment content. As explained at the beginning of this chapter, the reason why Plantin et al.'s approach was taken as a theoretical framework for this thesis is because they operationalise digital media objects in a way that presents features found in both platform studies and infrastructure studies. In the case of Net ix, besides being a digital platform, it has also taken the shape of a complex infrastructure in order to support its operations across the world. It is an example of the infrastructuralisation of streaming services, and I argue that it should be regarded as an infrastructure by following the two intellectual lines along which infrastructure studies has developed, as laid out by Plantin et al. (295-296). According to them, the rst is focused on a historical perspective on large technical systems - Net ix, besides being a web-based digital service, also makes use of a material and dispersed infrastructure, with servers, data centers, CDNs and many more heterogeneous elements distributed around the world. Furthermore, the second intellectual line described by Plantin et al. is more focused on the sociology of infrastructures, highlighting features such as ubiquity and reliability. Similarly, as shown in the introduction, Net ix's exponential growth indicates its wide reach around the world, and its service has become one of the main means of consuming audiovisual content nowadays. Therefore, it can be treated as becoming a service that is essential to users and embedded into daily life.
The rst intellectual line of infrastructure studies mentioned by Plantin et al. developed a body of work that sought to outline a history of the development of large technical systems (LTS). One of these authors is Thomas P. Hughes, who elected the electric power system as the most impressive construction project of the 19th century, studied its formative years, between 1880 and 1930. According to him, "(e)lectric power systems embody the physical, intellectual, and symbolic
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resources of the society that constructs them" (2). For such, he also takes a cross-country approach, analysing systems from the U.S., Germany and England, and in studying local, regional and national-scale systems, he shows that all the interconnected components that make up these technical systems are designed and centrally controlled for the purpose of performance optimisation (5). Moreover, Hughes also points out that, as these systems grow and expand, they gain what he calls a 'substantial momentum', in which case these systems have developed a material infrastructure consisting of "machines, devices, structures, and other physical artifacts in which considerable capital has been invested" (15). Hughes later joined Renate Mayntz in editing a book that approached not only electrical power systems, but other types of LTS, such as railroad networks and telephone systems, outlining a historical perspective on the installation and development of such infrastructures (Mayntz and Hughes). Another key concept developed by this strand of theorists is that of sociotechnical gateways, which emerge in order to link the heterogeneous systems that compose an infrastructure into networks, that is, to achieve technical compatibility (Egyedi and Spirco 948-949). Examples of gateway technologies are AC/DC power converters, and document format converters (allowing documents in one speci c format to be opened and read by another software application).
The second intellectual line in the eld of infrastructure studies that Plantin et al. referred to is more concerned with taking on a phenomenological and sociological perspective, that is, not so much focusing on the systems themselves, but rather pointing to the ways in which these systems impact the societies in which they are built, and how dependent these communities become on such infrastructures. Edwards et al. argued that as LTSs become more and more consolidated, they "become genuine infrastructures, i.e. ubiquitous, reliable, and widely shared resources operating on national and transnational, scales" (12). Such features that are characteristic of infrastructural organisations, such as ubiquity, reliability, accessibility and durability, are what create the dependencies on these infrastructures. Their embeddedness in daily life render them invisible, transparent, only becoming noticeable during episodes of breakdown (Plantin et al. 296).
Approaching the contributions made by the aforementioned scholars is useful to address some key concepts pertaining to the eld of infrastructure studies, whether focusing on the sociotechnical systems and their network of interconnected elements by technical gateways, or focusing on how their ubiquity, reliability and durability make communities dependent on them. Within this discussion, understanding Net ix as an infrastructure shows a con guration that resembles that of vertically integrated systems, representing a larger process of infrastructuralisation of streaming services. For such, it is useful approaching Benjamin Bratton's model of The Stack, in order to address the layered and dispersed infrastructure that enables Net ix and services of this kind to operate on a global scale.
2.3.1. V ertical integration
On March 30, 2018, it was reported that Net ix had been ‘in advanced talks’ to purchase EuropaCorp lm studio, owned by French lmmaker Luc Besson (Liptak, Report: Netflix n. pag.),
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which was later denied by the studio. Nonetheless, they did spark some comments about how this could be seen as Net ix's strategy to vertically integrate its services. This notion is also reinforced considering the amount of movies Net ix has been making recently: in 2017, the streamer delivered more than 60 Net ix Original movies (Virtue n. pag.). Repeating the success in 2018, with movies such as Bird Box and three-time Oscar winner Roma, there is no doubt that the company seems keen in continuing its investments in original productions, whether it is lms, documentaries or series. This trend points to a process of vertical integration, "referring to the merger or acquisition of companies at di erent levels of production, distribution, and exhibition" (Jin 407). In the case of Net ix, however, this vertical integration does not necessarily happen through the merger or acquisition of a company. By contrast, the streamer commissions and funds the making of its original productions, establishing contracts with third party-producing companies that are in charge of taking care of the actual production of the series and/or movies. Even though not directly producing them, Net ix fully owns the rights to this content, not having to license it from external studios or cable television companies, holding the exclusive rights to the distribution on its streaming platform.
Literature about vertical integration in creative industries has been covered from di erent approaches by scholars in the eld. Blackstone and Bowman, for instance, discussed the impact of vertical integration in motion pictures, more speci cally on the integration of the production, distribution and exhibition stages. According to them, "(v)ertically integrating a producer-distributor and an exhibitor can lead to lower prices, which would cause bigger audiences, higher admissions revenues, and higher pro t" (Blackstone and Bowma 124). As a result of higher pro t, companies would have more funds for investment in future productions. Meanwhile, Tasneem Chipty discussed vertical integration between programming and distribution in the cable television industry, more speci cally that between cable system operators and programme service providers, in which "the harmful e ects of market foreclosure are o set by the e ciency-enhancing e ects of vertical integration" (Chipty 430). In other words, vertical integration results in e ciency gains by lowering the price of the services while improving the quality of their product, achieving higher penetration rates. In addition, Chipty also argues that "integrated operators prefer to carry their own programming" (Chipty 450). Finally, W. Wayne Fu focused his research on the Singapore cinema market, by analysing the e ects of vertical integration and horizontal control on the screening of lms in movie theaters, in terms of its impact on the extension or cancellation of their run depending on whether the movie is from a distributor with which the theater has ownership ties or not. His ndings showed that "how long rental movies (i.e., those supplied by unintegrated distributors) stay on in a theatre depends on the vertical structure and number of theaters owned by its parent chain" (Fu 77), and that vertically integrated theatres tended to cancel the run length of these movies faster than unintegrated theatres.
These contributions to the study of vertical integration in creative industries help understand how this strategy can play out in the case of Net ix: a company that achieved worldwide success as a streaming service occupying the stage of exhibition, by licensing content that could also be watched in other screens (for instance, in cable television channels), then expanding to the role of distributor by acquiring exclusive rights of distribution of certain shows, and nally
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also taking upon the stage of production of its own original material. By investing billions of dollars into the making of its original series and lms, Net ix is building a catalogue of its own, in which the streamer is in control of every stage: from the production, to the distribution and its exhibition. This way, the company rises as a successful model for the production of audiovisual content in the streaming business, o ering a plethora of options to its users, at a monthly xed price that is more nancially feasible than paying for movie ticket rates. O ering more content, of a better quality, for a smaller price, leads to more people using the streaming service, which results in more revenue for the company, a sum that is then used for and invested in more original content, and so on.
2.3.2. T he infrastructuralisation of streaming services and the Stack model
Even though most users' experience with Net ix and other streaming services might be one that interprets them as a seemingly simple and straightforward online-based platform – as they provide a catalogue of lms and series for the user to choose from at his/her convenience – its operationalisation is completely dependant on a physical infrastructure that exists so as to support its online actions. This process, as I argue, results in the infrastructuralisation of streaming services. In order for the company to programme its software application and implement the interactive features present in Bandersnatch, it requires a physical hardware to support this move. It is also required to store the data that is collected from the user, since the interactive lm is composed of branching narratives that are dependent on the choices the user makes. If one exits the service and goes back to watching it later, the user is redirected to the exact point that it was left previously. Furthermore, in order for the streamer to operate at a world-wide level, it needs to make use of database centers, as well as its ‘Open Connect’ programme, Net ix’s own content distribution network (CDN), which connects its service across di erent regions of the world, so that the content is not only distributed, but also consumed in the best video quality possible (Net ix Open Connect n. pag.).
As a result of this infrastructuralisation, Net ix has expanded into a service that is available in over 190 countries around the world, due to a dispersed and robust distribution network that connects users to the streamer. In its capacity as a digital platform, the company has had great success in distributing lms and series (especially its Original content) throughout a plethora of countries, a move that seems to be more di cult for traditional entertainment companies. I argue, then, that the con guration of Net ix as both a platform and an infrastructure makes possible new strategies of content distribution on an international scale. For this reason, I approach the concept of The Stack as a fruitful framework to understand this new logic of content distribution on Net ix.
In the opening section of his book, Benjamin Bratton referred to Hillary Clinton’s speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, in 2013, in which she addressed the need of new models for geopolitical architecture, singling out global information systems as "the single most important powerful engine of the new world" (Bratton 3). Bratton lays out a model to assess the new architecture that Clinton talks about, which he calls The Stack. He describes it as an accidental
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megastructure, a result of planetary-scale computation that inscribes technological systems and platforms at the level of urban scale, governing information ows that, in turn, produce new territories in their own image. In this model (Figure 2), computational systems should be understood as vertical structures, a stack of interlocking layers that in uence and are in uenced by each other, namely six: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface and User (Bratton 6-11).
It is important to mention that Bratton mainly dedicates this model to the discussion of new modes of political geography in the era of digital platforms, and how they challenge traditional nation-state forms of political sovereignty. By taking the Stack as a theoretical reference to this thesis, I propose to adapt Bratton’s model to the case of Net ix and streaming services, in that it challenges traditional market strategies for content distribution on an international level, which is made possible due to its condition of a digital platform that has reached a planetary scale, being supported by a complex, multi-layered and vertical infrastructure.
2.4. M ethodological approach to the case studies
Thus far, this chapter has been dedicated to laying out a theoretical framework in which I can analyse the case studies I approach in this thesis, situating my claims within an academic eld of research most interested in new media and platform studies. I take Net ix as my main object of
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study, so that I can address two phenomena that I argue are key to understanding the operationalisation and impact of Net ix in the streaming business, and furthermore, in the entertainment industry: the platformisation of interfaciality and the infrastructuralisation of streaming services. For such, I follow a methodological approach that consists of examining recent developments and events around Net ix and the streaming business, and putting them into a larger context that sheds light on the forces operating behind these services. Furthermore, as the goal is to look at and keep track of the current developments related to Net ix and the streaming industry, I make use of trade press analysis as the main source of information gathering on these events. This includes a diversi ed list of reliable sources such as:
- Journalistic, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post;
- Financial- and business-oriented, including B loomberg, C NN Business, and Bu siness Insider;
- Entertainment-oriented, including T he Hollywood Reporter, and V ariety;
- Technology- and media-oriented sources, including T he Verge, M ashable, and T ech Crunch.
Moreover, I also draw from o cial statements made by some of the entertainment companies I bring into discussion, such as Apple and WarnerMedia, and in the case of Net ix, I refer back to some of their o cial webpages, such as their help centre and media centre, in order to get information about their main services directly at the source.
Having Net ix as my main object of study, the analysis and discussion of this thesis revolve around two recent cases that have stood out from a timeline of events due to the impact they might have on Net ix and in the entertainment world altogether. These case studies will guide the discussion of the following two chapters, which will be structured thematically, according to each case:
(1) the release of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, a Net ix Original interactive lm. Not only does it represent new ways to articulate storytelling in digital platforms, it also reveals the company's ability to collect more precise user data on their consumers' viewing habits and behaviour;
(2) the wave of big media and entertainment companies that have announced the future release of their own streaming services, namely Warner Media, NBCUniversal, Disney, and Apple. Not only will their extensive content library have an impact on Net ix's catalogue, their infrastructure also presents a threat for their audience outreach.
These chapters will be organized around the speci c case studies mentioned above, which will serve as starting points. The discussion will then stem from them and approach other events and news related to the topic, so as to create a timeline of events to better understand its logical development. I will do so in order to situate these speci c case studies within their larger narrative,
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which means that ultimately, my intention is to depict them not as isolated events in history, but rather as part of a larger context that shows the forces behind these services, tying the overall discussion to a theoretical debate.
By taking Plantin et al.'s methodology, I will adjust the framework of the thesis to the theoretical bifocal approach proposed by them. In other words, each case study will be analysed through the lens of both platform and infrastructure studies, so as to show how the qualities of this dual-nature from Net ix relates to each case. Ultimately, in each case study, I also present my contribution to the eld, by showing evidence of how both cases are representative of the platformisation of interfaciality, as well as the i nfrastructuralisation of streaming services.
Given the volatile nature of the developments analysed in this thesis, the writing process is going to be revisited and updated constantly until its completion, and as these events will most likely still develop and present new additions after this research has concluded, this is not meant to be seen as an exhaustive discussion of these topics, but rather a contribution to the understanding of Net ix and its role in the streaming industry within the eld of new media and platform studies.
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3. Y ou’ll have to see it through to the end
Ta king B lack Mirror:Bandersnatch as a case study to analyse the di erent possibilities - for the user and for Net ix - a orded by the platformisation of interfaciality, and how that in turn reveals an infrastructuralisation of the streamer in order to support such actions.
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Narrator: You'll have to see it through to the end. We've placed visual aids in your eyeline, which might help if you get into trouble. The suggestion we're getting from psychologists is that you should take as long as you need. If you rush, it might be misinterpreted as eagerness or even enjoyment. You'll have to see it through to the end.
Stefan: I should try again4
When Bloomberg rst reported, back in October 1, 2018, that Net ix was planning to launch a choose-your-own-adventure Black Mirror episode, it still did not have full disclosure to the speci c details about the story. What it did know was that this release was part of a bigger strategy on Net ix's part to invest in an entertainment format that placed interactivity as a core element of the narrative (Shaw n. pag.). By integrating elements from traditional television with those mostly associated with video games, the bet on interactive productions was not only a way for Net ix to maintain its appeal to its ever-growing audience, but also as a way to meet the expectations set by its fame of being a service providing innovative content to its users. And even though Net ix had somewhat altered the way television shows and movies were being consumed (as an on-demand, online service), it had done “little to change the way shows [were] conceived or produced” (Shaw n. pag.).
That is where Bandersnatch comes in. The dialogue transcribed at the beginning of this section is part of a promotional video for Bandersnatch, in which an omniscient narrator introduces the viewer to the rules of the game. The user/viewer is instructed to see the lm through to the end, with visual aids to help him/her navigate through the story, without taking any rushed decisions: the user is advised to "take as long as [they] need". At the end of the 34-second video, the main character, Stefan (Finn Whitehead), brie y comments: "I should try again". The dialogue, along with the visual aids demonstrated in the video, demonstrate the interactive nature of the content, inciting the user to experiment, to play with it, to take an active role instead of passively consuming it. This infers a change in the way this product was conceived and thus produced, having to shoot di erent branches of narrative based on the user's choice. Bandersnatch takes the shape of a product closely resembling that of a video game, for its non-linear narrative. This con guration is similar to what Espen Aarseth called 'ergodic literature', a narrative that requires non-trivial e ort from its readers/viewers/users in order to traverse the story (1).
Understanding Net ix's bet on interactivity as a promising format for their original content helps analysing its role as a data-driven digital platform. Its content is adjusted to the logic of the platform, which I argue also adjusts the user-service relationship, in a way that leads to the platformisation of interfaciality. This platformised interfacial regime a ords new possibilities for the user, such as presenting new storytelling formats, but mostly for the platform and the data that
4Transcribed dialogue from the promotional video for Black Mirror:Bandersnatch, featuring the voice-over from an unknown narrator and one line from the episode's main character, shared by the Black Mirror' s o cial Twitter account. The link to this tweet, containing the promotional video for B andersnatch, can be found here:
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it can collect concerning their users’ behavioural patterns. Moreover, it requires a kind of operationalisation that is di erent to that of non-interactive shows, requiring a technical apparatus to support such activities. Net ix, therefore, is dependent on and develops a certain kind of infrastructure that enables this interactive format to be implemented, which is made possible due to the i nfrastructuralisation of streaming services.
3.1. S ilicon Valley meets Hollywood - Interactivity and Net ix
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was the rst big success from Net ix to make use of the interactive format, revealing a potential strategy from the streamer to develop more similar content. However, it is important to stress that Bandersnatch was not the rst Net ix product to undertake this interactive format. Back in March 5, 2017, The Daily Mail reported that Net ix had been experimenting with interactive technology, which would allow viewers to decide over key plot moments in the narrative, in a choose-your-own adventure style (Rushton n. pag.). With branch narratives for the user to choose from, and initially focusing on children's programming, Net ix CEO Reed Hastings con rmed the experiment to The Daily Mail, saying that ‘[o]nce you have got interactivity you can try anything’.
By the time Net ix introduced its interactive shows, the company was already well-versed in monetising user feedback. When House of Cards was released in 2013, it opened the doors to a new way of thinking about audiovisual products, and how to make sense of them. It namely introduced a Big Data-based approach to them, one that allowed the company to make use of its platform-like nature to its own advantage. Thus, it had access to very precise information about the viewing habits of their users, such as which shows have been watched, how many times, and whether seen it through to the end or not, which is more than what traditional broadcasters could do (Williams n. pag.). In the case of House of Cards, for instance, the use of Big Data was essential for predicting the success of the show: based on all of the data collected from its users in previous years, Net ix already knew how well movies directed by David Fincher and the ones starring Kevin Spacey performed with their viewers, as well as the success of the 1990's British version of House of Cards. By merging all of these metrics into the making of the show, Net ix gave viewers exactly what they wanted (Carr n. pag.). Moreover, what this move also showed was the streamer's belief in the future of algorithmic programming, whereby data-driven decision making starts to play a big role in the kind of content that is produced, based on their knowledge of their user's "detailed watching habits" (Leber n. pag.). This kind of knowledge is enabled by the nature of the relationship between the user and Net ix, one that is being carried out in a service that is, rst and foremost, a digital platform. The platformisation of interfaciality, as I argue, has existed in Net ix's operationalisation long before original programming and interactive productions made a debut in the streamer's catalogue. It dates back to when the company decided to shift its operations to an online-based service that fused "technology and subscriber information in a complex alchemy of audiovisual matchmaking" (Hallinan and Striphas 117). This became mostly noticeable in a contest launched by Net ix on October 2006, known as The Netflix Prize, gathering contestants from hundreds of
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countries for a period of almost three years, which sought to design an algorithm that improved the company's recommendation engine by 10% in regards to its accuracy in recommending movies and TV shows to its users (118).
In order to address how interactivity changes the interfaciality in Net ix, it is important to understand what is meant by referring to the concept of interface. One scholar who has contributed to the understanding of the interface is Alexander Galloway, who discussed it amongst other ways as a "general mode of mediation (...), ultimately something beyond the screen" (54). He rendered a comprehension of the interface not as a thing, but rather an e ect, a process that is meant to denote two states. First, 'e ect' as e ecting a change, for instance a material change in the design of the interface that, in turn, changes how one experiences that service (e.g. Net ix changing its rating metrics from " ve stars" to "thumbs up/down"). Second, 'e ect' as the result of something, and thus understanding the interface can give insight into the forces that enact power and control on them. Net ix, in the condition of a digital platform, shapes the way in which people consume and experience audiovisual content. That is done, more speci cally, through its interface, which following Galloway's line of thinking, is both e ecting a change and is also the e ect of a given process. Tying that to the logic of the platform, Net ix's interface e ects a change in that it a ords certain interfacial elements to be implemented, such as the interactive features that this chapter is focusing on. It is simultaneously an e ect of a process in that it is the result of a decision on the part of its founders to create a service that was online-based, later developing into an on-demand streaming service, and ultimately using a Big Data-approach to guide its operations. For all of these decisions to be put into practice, the relationship between user-service had to be adjusted to the logic of the platform. As a consequence, the interfacial regime that got established in Net ix was one that t the company's needs in the condition as a platform. In other words, the interfaciality in Net ix was platformised. And that is how users experience it when consuming its content - especially with the streamer's Originals.
Interactive programming, then, is yet one more chapter, albeit a more explicit one, in the history of the platformisation of interfaciality in Net ix, a type of format that is only made possible due to the programmability of digital platforms (Bogost & Montfort; Plantin et al.). As previously mentioned, Bandersnatch was not the rst product from the company to experiment with interactivity. The rst ever interactive Net ix Original, Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale (2017), made its debut on the platform on June 20, 2017 (Figure 4). Having kids as its target audience, the title was the result of a partnership between the streamer and DreamWorks Animation, and presented the viewer with two options to choose from, with branching narratives (Figure 5) that featured "13 di erent storyline choices and two endings" (Alvarez n. pag.). The company then went on to release two more interactive storytelling titles, both also targeted for children: Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile, and Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout. In its early stages, this initiative was taken as experimental by Net ix, with CEO Reed Hastings stating: "if it works well we’ll do more. If it doesn’t work well, you won’t hear about it anymore" (Plummer n. pag.). For such, the company appointed its director of product innovation, Carla Engelbrecht Fisher, to oversee the operations regarding its interactive projects, given her past experiences with interactive and children's programming (Rubin n. pag.).
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The streamer's kick-start into the interactive business focused its initial e orts on children's programming, which served as a test run for the company before venturing the format into more mainstream, adult-oriented content. That decision, according to Fisher, was due to the fact that kids are already used to interacting with the content they consume: “They’re touching every screen. They think everything is interactive” (Newton n. pag.). In his book, Benjamin Bratton described his two-year old son’s experience in discovering the functions of a remote control, also highlighting this ‘button-pushing mania’ phase of many kids, and how that represents a bigger discovery of how modern interfaciality works, in that objects, buttons and signs can represent something else other than themselves, and e ect a change that is semantically compatible to what they suggest, given that they are “imbued with the computational intelligence to interpret our gestures” (Bratton 227). Following his logic, having programmes that display interactive features in Net ix more clearly demonstrates the layered con guration of the platform, as the choices made during the episode determine which branching narrative will follow, that is, which les the streamer will redirect from its servers to the user’s computer. In other words, an action made by the User when interacting with the Interface also represents a command in one of the company’s servers, which connects the user’s computer (that is, its IP Address, which also indicates its City of origin) to their network in the Cloud, a process that is dependent on a physical infrastructure that has a location on Earth. This layered and vertical structure to describe planetary-scale computational systems is what Bratton calls The Stack.
Net ix’s interactive project was always meant to be extended to reach a wider audience, and according to a post from the streamer's media centre blog, the blending of Silicon Valley engineering and Hollywood creativity "has opened up this new world of storytelling possibilities on Net ix" (Fisher, Interactive storytelling n. pag.). In other words, one can interpret this as Net ix seeking leverage over other content creators through its condition as a digital platform. This resonates with Marshall McLuhan's description of the medium acting as a container for a previous media format. According to him, whenever a new medium emerges, it also creates a new environment in which it operates, one that "reprocesses the earlier environments" (McLuhan 90) and feeds from them. For instance lm, as a medium, follows the legacy of other media formats, such as photography and theatre. Reading McLuhan, Galloway highlights the nature of a new medium as being layered, as containing previous media formats in its composition, and having the interface be "the point of transition between di erent mediatic layers within any nested system" (Galloway 31). When thinking about Net ix and its content production, one might refer to television and lm as the two logical media formats which the streamer feeds from. However, in a true McLuhan fashion, analysing Net ix from a medium-speci c perspective seems to be much more fruitful than looking at the kind of content it conveys. Referring back to the origins of Net ix gives insight into how the streaming giant might have had much more in uence from the wave of e-commerce and online services rather than from the cinematic and television world. Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph - a computer programmer and a tech marketing executive, respectively - were set on founding a company that would become "the Amazon.com of something besides books" (Keating 17), and found DVDs to be a convenient media format for their ambitions. Therefore, if Net ix is to be seen as a container for previous media types, then audiovisual
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production (in the form of lm and television) is but one of the many layers that have formed the streamer as the medium it is today. Another layer, which seems to speak more clearly about the true nature of Net ix, is that of online services, which in 1997, might have been translated as the e-commerce performed by Amazon, but nowadays takes the shape of digital platforms, in the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and so forth.
Net ix is, then, rst and foremost, a data-driven company, a digital platform that takes online and streaming video as its currency. Exclusive and catalogued audiovisual content in exchange for user data. In this equation, interactivity proves itself as a valuable factor for the company in terms of leveraging its position in comparison to other providers in the streaming race, from already established Amazon Prime and Hulu, to newcomers Disney and Apple, as will be discussed in the next chapter. As of April 2019, Net ix had gathered 148.8 million subscriptions worldwide, and with the service expecting to add a further 5 million to the count in the next quarter, Net ix will most likely surpass 150 million subscribers by the end of June 2019 (Pallotta n. pag.). Interactivity requires of the user a certain engagement that involves the active input of their preferences in order to traverse the narrative, which results in what can be considered a goldmine of user data for Net ix, in that it can provide further insight on their users’ behaviour and preferences. This strategy is especially interesting if considered within the scope of the attention economy, in which attention becomes a scarce resource due to extensive Internet and social media usage, and an overwhelming amount of information being consumed. Therefore, attention can be treated as a kind of capital (Terranova 2-3), something valuable and to be competed for. Interactivity becomes an elaborate tool for Net ix to consume users' attention and, by doing so, their behavioural data.
3.2. T he importance of behavioural metrics to Net ix
Following up from the discussion of control in Net ix, and before going in depth into the case of Bandersnatch, it is an interesting case to look at the change of ratings system in Net ix, namely from the ‘ ve-star rating’ to the ‘thumbs-up and thumbs-down’. The replace, which happened back in April 2017, was the result of a year-long testing on the new thumbs up and down system, which showed a 200% increase in ratings when compared to the stars system (McAlone n. pag.). Cameron Johnson, director of product innovation who oversaw the shift, said that people usually misunderstood the stars rating as an average of all the reviews previously given by Net ix members, when in reality it was only the streamer’s estimation of how much they thought a user would like a speci c show, based on previous reviews given by that user. Thus, two people could have a di erent star rating being shown to them for the same movie or show. The change of ratings system was also accompanied by the introduction of a personalised % Match score (Johnson n. pag.).
What is interesting to take away from this shift can be summarised by a comment made by Net ix’s head of product, Todd Yellin: “We are addicted to the methodology of A/B testing” (Roettgers, Netflix replacing star n. pag.). The introduction of the ‘thumbs up and down’ rating system happened in April 2017, just two months before the release of Puss in Book, with both projects most likely being in development and preparation along the same time. In both cases, what
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is most important might not necessarily be the choices themselves, but rather what they tell about the people making them. Talking about the change in ratings system in Net ix to the Product Decoded podcast5, Yellin said that they realised that “it’s not about the ve stars; it’s about people’s behaviour. What they tend to watch is much more important than what they say they like. So we got much more into behavioural metrics”. In other words, Net ix is much more concerned with how people behave when watching their movies and TV shows rather than the speci c ratings they give to whatever they are watching. Yellin has also said multiple times that one of his main goals is to cater for the personalisation of each user’s experience in Net ix. In the context of the platformisation of interfaciality, the platform makes use of its interfacial elements in order to create this personalised experience. This is done through artwork personalisation, meaning that the imagery representing the titles on Net ix is personalised in order to convince viewers to watch its movies and shows, for instance by algorithmically customising thumbnails (Barton n. pag.).
Despite all of the daunting, behavioural data-mining agenda behind Net ix’s move into interactivity, engaging with Bandersnatch’ s interactive features can, indeed, be quite fun. If you are using the right device, that is. After the release of the Black Mirror interactive lm, some users took to social media platforms to complain about not being able to play the episode on certain devices (Taylor n. pag.). Indeed, Bandersnatch will not play on every Net ix-enabled device. According to the company's help centre page, its interactive shows are supported by many devices (Figure 6),
5 On April 25, 2018, Net ix’s head of product Todd Yellin was featured in the third episode of the Product Decoded podcast, in which he discussed several aspects of his career in Net ix. The interview can be found in its entirety in the following link: https://medium.com/speroventures/product-decoded-interview-with-todd-yellin-vp-product-net ix-74bc2c0d90ec
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“including smart TVs, streaming media players, game consoles, and iOS devices running the latest version of the Net ix app" (Net ix Help Center, Interactive content n. pag.). Meanwhile, Bandersnatch (which unlike some of its other interactive counterparts, does not have a linear version available) is not supported in Apple TV, Google's Chromecast, the Windows App or browsers using Silverlight. The reason for that is that Bandersnatch was written in the videogame programming language Twine, "an open-source platform that allows for interactive ction and narrative-heavy games, but that requires devices with a level of technological sophistication" (Alexander, B lack Mirror: Bandersnatch n. pag.).
The importance of approaching this aspect in the context of this chapter is to show that, despite maybe being more representative of the platform side of Net ix, Bandersnatch is also an example of how the streamer has gone through a process of infrastructuralisation, one that has resulted in the company gaining some features that are common to existing infrastructures. Net ix relies on a dispersed and material infrastructure in order to operate its services, a collection of "machines, devices, structures, and other physical artifacts in which considerable capital has been invested" (Hughes 15). As a Net ix Original – which we saw is a contentious term that hints at the fuzziness of Net ix’s media objects – Bandersnatch was released worldwide, and therefore requires a network of physical servers and data centers, distributed around the world. This material infrastructure also refers to the investment in Net ix-enabled devices that support the interactive format, such as smart TVs and updated iOs Apps. That is made possible due to the creation of what infrastructure theorists call sociotechnical gateways, which allow the conversation between heterogeneous systems to achieve technical compatibility (Egyedi and Spirco 948-949).
Furthermore, Net ix occupies a clear leadership position in the streaming and audiovisual business, with a 2018 report by Sandvine nding that the streamer consumed "15% of all internet bandwidth globally, the most of any single application" (Spangler, Netflix eats up n. pag.). Going from a US-based company to operating in over 190 countries across the world, Net ix has become a reliable reference for people to consume movies and TV shows on-demand. It has become a ubiquitous service, having spread over web- and mobile-based applications. In other words, its infrastructural systems have become "ubiquitous, reliable, and widely shared resources operating on national and transnational, scales" (Edwards et al. 12). Its embeddedness in daily life render them invisible, only becoming noticeable during episodes of breakdown (Plantin et al. 296), such as in the case of Net ix users who could not watch Bandersnatch as their device did not support the interactive features. In this case, these users had to go out of their way to nd another device that would play what is probably the most Black Mirror-B lack Mirror episode ever made, so as to avoid the infamous FOMO (i.e., fear of missing out).
3.3. P rogramming new experiences and recording them all
In the condition of an interactive lm, Bandersnatch presents the user with multiple possibilities from a storytelling point of view. Carla E. Fisher, who oversaw the interactivity project, advocated for the importance of this initiative as she regarded the streamer as an ‘interactive device ecosystem’,
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further stating: “We’re not beholden to terrestrial television. We’re not beholden to linear schedules” (Newton n. pag.). Fisher’s comments about the nature of Net ix speak directly to a Brattonian logic of platforms growing to a planetary-scale and expanding traditional terrestrial boundaries. Bratton’s interest in the geopolitics of computational systems is focused on how “The Stack platform itself disturbs existing models of jurisdiction and projects its own out into the world” (Bratton 66). These platforms are a orded, mainly through its Cloud layer, to operate according to its own jurisdiction, meaning that they are not restricted to the borders of their country of origin, but can expand to reach foreign markets, and in doing so, take on roles and powers that are usually attributed to Nation-states. This becomes evident, for instance, when global information systems clash with Nations over the distribution of ows of information and private data, such as the on-going battle between Google and China. This Brattonian logic can be adapted to t the case of streaming services too, and more speci cally address Fisher’s remarks about Net ix. The streamer, as a US-headquartered company, is not restricted to American territory, but rather has expanded to operate in over 190 countries. Furthermore, it is not bound to a terrestrial ‘jurisdiction’, which in this case can be represented by the “linear schedules” Fisher talks about, but rather creates one in its own image, in which users can view on-demand content, according to their own schedules and preferences, forming the ‘interactive device ecosystem’ she regards Net ix as.
What is most useful for this analysis, when looking at the interactive features in a show like Bandersnatch, is what it entails for Net ix in terms of being a newfound pot of gold, full of user data that can give insight about their users’ behaviour and preferences. When transitioning into an online, and more speci cally, into a streaming service, the company took the shape of a digital platform, which meant taking advantage of its a ordances for its own corporate leverage. Namely, its possibility to be programmed proved to be extremely essential for their operations. Following Montfort and Bogost, Net ix is to be understood as a layered structure, made up of a core unit (hardware), that relates “to modular components” (3), elements with high variability that can be programmed and re-programmed to attend the needs of the streamer. Taking the case of Bandersnatch, these modular components translate into the interfacial elements that the user is in direct contact with when watching the show, which are programmed to include interactivity in the form of screen signs. The core unit of the service Net ix provides to its users, which we can interpret as the physical hardware servers that support its operation, remains the same, whilst the elements pertaining to the software level (e.g. its interface) can be rearranged. The interactive features from Bandersnatch, which users experience as signs on the screen that are part of the narrative, are modular in that they were programmed by Net ix to be di erent than the traditional interface of shows with linear narratives. Montfort and Bogost studied the Atari VCS as it was a simple and e cient example of a platform that was “sold as a complete hardware system in a packaged form, ready to accept media such as cartridges” (2), and such interchangeable cartridges would allow “the system to play many games” (10). Net ix is a platform that is sold as a one integrated service, with its movies and shows (namely, its original ones) acting like cartridges, which can be programmed to ‘play many games’ - quite literally.
The streamer’s catalogue of original and licensed products can be seen as units pertaining to a larger system. Although its licensed material is still equally valid for all the information it provides
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about users’ viewing habits - which is how Net ix grew to its leading position it occupies today - its original productions seems to speak more directly to the concept of 'playing many games'. With its Originals, Net ix can combine its Silicon Valley expertise, inherent to its platform nature, with the creativity of content creators. This product-speci c interpretation o ers a two-fold approach: one from the user’s perspective, and another from the platform’s. The former speaks directly to the kind of experience users have when consuming this product, as they are invited to actively engage and to literally play with it, to go back on their decisions, to choose di erent paths and discover new branches in the story. Borrowing the term from Espen Aarseth, it is a type of ergodic storytelling, a “labyrinth, a game, or an imaginary world” (3). The latter, in contrast, speaks more directly to how Net ix bene ts from this avenue of ‘playing more games’, which is made possible due to its platform nature.
Focusing on how the streamer bene ts from the programmability of Bandersnatch can be reframed as a question of why interactive products are an interesting format for Net ix, or more speci cally: in what ways does interactivity help Net ix in collecting user data? On February 11, 2019, technology policy researcher Michael Veale shared on his Twitter account6 that he had requested Net ix to send his viewing data under GDPR7 rules, which grants EU citizens the right to “request a wealth of information from a company collecting data” (Gault n. pag.). As a follow up to his request, Net ix sent a PDF explaining the data that was collected, as well as a CSV le with all of his Bandersnatch choices, with both documents being encrypted (Porter, Netflix records all n. pag.). The company also explained, as Veale revealed in a Twitter thread in his account, that the choices made in the context of branching narratives are collected and stored at an aggregated level, to help them “determine how to improve this model of storytelling in the context of a show or movie”. This kind of justi cation is somewhat predictable from Net ix, which aims to shift the attention away from its role as a data-collection corporation, and chooses to be regarded as a platform that is “rewarded for facilitating expression but not liable for its excesses” (Gillespie 356). Therefore, scraping user data gets framed as a small compromise on the user’s part in exchange for the improvement of their services. However, as Veale also revealed, Net ix claimed that choices stored at an individual level, in the context of branching narratives, were stored to “determine which video segment to display” to the user. As much as this explanation makes sense, Veale also pointed out that all of his Bandersnatch choices still had not been delinked or anonymised, “as [he had] got access to it long after [he] watched the show” (Gault n. pag.).
Even with the rules set out by the European’s GDPR, it is highly unlikely that Net ix would fully disclose the reasons behind its data collection practices, and what they are actually being used for. However, if we go back to Todd Yellin’s comments on the 2017 change of ratings system in Net ix, we can try and sketch some arguments to explain that. As mentioned before, right around the time that the ‘thumbs up and thumbs down’ metrics were announced, Yellin said
6 The thread of tweets made by Michael Veale pertaining to his request to Net ix to provide him with his viewing data can be found in the following link:
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that they were “addicted to the methodology of A/B testing” (Roettgers, Netflix replacing star n. pag.). That saying is already indicative of their interest in analysing user behaviour, as A/B testing is a known method of presenting two versions of the same object to di erent sample groups, in order to see how one group reacts to the rst version and how the other reacts to the second. This is done to determine which of the two versions most resembles the desired outcome. In other words, the experiment focuses on how people behave in a given situation.
Relying on user behaviour is by no means something new to Net ix. With traditional and linear content, Net ix is able to scrape general data on how users engage with their products, for instance what they select to watch and for how long. With Bandersnatch, however, this process opens up a whole new avenue of possibilities, as choices in the lm are “indicative of real-world decisions like product preference, musical taste, and engagement with human behaviour” (Damiani n. pag.). At the beginning of the lm, the viewer is asked to make a decision to choose between two brands of breakfast cereal “Sugar Pu s” or “Frosties” (Figure 7). At rst glance, this might seem like a very small contribution to the narrative, but it is most likely there to contextualise the user of the interactive features in the show. At a later point, the user is asked to choose between two cassette tapes for Stefan to play in his walkman. Based on the viewer’s decision, the tape that Stefan plays ends up being the soundtrack to that scene, which while also having a small impact on the plot of the lm, already features a more explicit example of the user’s power over the content - going as far as selecting the soundtrack for the scene. Furthermore, as the narrative progresses, the choices become much more impactful and plot-changing, such as when the user is asked to choose whether Stefan should 'back o ' or 'kill his father' during a confrontation between the two.
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All of the choices described above, no matter how relevant they might be to the plot at rst glance, hold their own merit in Net ix’s eyes. The rst two give clear indication of leading the user toward brand preference, whether applied to cereal or musical taste. This could very well develop into a strategy by the streamer around “programmatic product placement” (with the possibility to sell this service to brands, for instance), as well as helping them strike “data-mining deals with the likes of Spotify or Apple Music” (Damiani n. pag.). Such marketing strategies can be extremely bene cial for Net ix, especially in a time when big companies such as Disney and Apple are joining the streaming race. As for the last example mentioned above, it speaks more directly to how the user reacts to extreme human behaviour. In the cinematic and television world, it is very common to listen the term ‘climax’ when describing a turning point in the narrative. It is usually a moment towards the end in which the main character(s), after facing all the con icts that have carried out the plot, is faced with a decisive situation that is determining to the end of the story. It is usually the peak of the narrative, a moment that is built upon and raises the viewer’s expectations. And depending on what viewers think of the resolution to the climax might determine whether that movie or series becomes a hit or a op. This can be used as a factor, for instance, to decide whether a TV show should be renewed for another season or not. Therefore, meeting the viewers’ expectations when thinking about these moments is instrumental for the success of the product. With Bandersnatch, however, the viewer is the one who chooses that. Not only can it make the showrunners - and why not, Net ix - somewhat exempt of the responsibility over the success or failure of the narrative, but also allows the streamer to have more insight on what users prefer when it comes down to the characters' behaviour, especially in determining aspects of the plot. That way, the company can create preference patterns, understand what users would like to see, and in turn have that implicitly act as an in uencing factor in future shows, whether on screenwriting, directing, acting, and so forth.
3.4. I s the future of entertainment interactive?
The scenario described above, I argue, intensi es what Annemarie Navar-Gill called the 'platformisation of creativity'. As Navar-Gill explains, streaming services have often contributed to a dominant discourse that they provide a liberating space for content creators to explore their freedom of creativity, which can explain the outburst of Net ix Originals in recent years, covering the vastest range of genres, allowing for more creative risks to be taken. However, the company remains primarily a data-driven one, and as such, is constantly referring back to all the data it collects in order to inform its decision-making process, which would explain a recurrent rapid cancellation of original shows like Santa Clarita Diet and several of the Marvel series (D aredevil, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones) . However, once Net ix starts to add to the equation such precise information such as the one informed by its interactive shows, the emerging frictions between creators’ creativity and the staggering amount of user data collected can easily unbalance this formula to the point of having Net ix (even if by implicit means) let data fully dictate the creation of its original programming. So what is next for Net ix’s interactive endeavours?
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On March 18, 2019, Net ix announced the launch of its second interactive live-action project and rst interactive series, an eight-episode show called "You vs. Wild", starring survival instructor and television presenter, Bear Grylls (Roettgers, The next Bandersnatch n. pag.). The announcement came only one week after head of product Todd Yellin addressed the success of Bandersnatch by a rming that the company was doubling down on interactive storytelling, and that "it won’t necessarily be science ction, or it won’t necessarily be dark. It could be a wacky comedy. It could be a romance, where the audience gets to choose – should she go out with him or him" (Ramachandran n. pag.).
It is clear that Net ix is betting on interactivity as a promising format for its platform, with even job positions dedicated speci cally to this area, such as a role described as 'Narrative Designer, Interactive', in charge of helping ‘reimagine the future of entertainment experiences on Net ix’8. The streamer is not, however, the only company to be investing in this kind of user engagement as a pro table revenue maker. Google is launching, in November 2019, its own game-streaming service, called Stadia (Smith n. pag.). Meanwhile, YouTube (the online video-sharing giant, which is also owned by Google) announced on April 2019 that it was planning its own interactive choose-your-own-adventure-style series, which would "exist under a new unit dedicated to interactive programming and live specials" (Alexander, Y ouTube is planning n. pag.).
It seems rather premature to assume that interactivity will for sure be the default format in the future of entertainment. Likewise, it also seems somewhat foolish to completely dismiss this model and predict a short-lived run. As I have argued in this chapter, interactivity opens many possibilities for Net ix and whatever service that decides to make use of this format. Therefore, the discussion should not merely focus on the shape that Net ix Original programming will take in the future, but what it means for the collection of user data. It is not about whether what they produce is considered to be video game, lm, television, or a mash between all of them. Net ix has been avidly experimenting with di erent genres and di erent formats for the products they produce. They can a ord such approach due to its already established position in the streaming business. What is important for them is to test di erent models and nd that which yields the most user data, giving further insight on their members' behaviours and preferences. And for now, interactivity seems to be a promising bet in providing just that.
8 The description for the Job o er of 'Narrative Designer, Interactive' can be found in the following link: https://jobs.net ix.com/jobs/869301 | Source: Net ix - Jobs
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4. T h e Net ix e ect - the golden age of streaming services
Th e recent news involving big media and entertainment companies launching their own streaming services shed light on how these companies seem to be adjusting their user-service interfaciality to the context of a digital platform. This, in part, is a reaction to the infrastructuralisation of streaming services, which a ord them certain operations that leverage their strategies on an international level, meshing with the infrastructure of traditional entertainment companies.
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I would characterize this as an extremely important, very, very significant strategic shift for us.
- Robert A. Iger, Disney CEO, talking about Disney+ over a conference call to analysts, in 2017 9
From documentaries to dramas. From kids to comedies. The highest quality of storytelling in one single place. This is Apple TV+ .
- Jamie Erlicht, one of Apple's original-content chief, announcing the Apple TV+ in the company's event on March 201910
When Net ix was launched, back in 1997, it was done under the belief from its founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in creating something that would eventually turn into the "A mazon.com of something besides books" (Keating 17). With statistics to support the success achieved by the streamer - 139 million subscriptions worldwide (Jarvey n. pag.), consuming 15% of all global internet tra c (Binder n. pag.) - it seems that Hastings and Randolph had it right when it came down to betting on a service that was online-based and provided an on-demand service to its users. So much so that it led to big media and entertainment companies to take action in announcing the release of their own streaming services, presented as direct competitors to Net ix in the streaming race.
It has not always been just Net ix. The streamer has had competition from other services for some time now, mostly noticeable with Amazon Prime Video and, in the United States market, Hulu11, which have all been marketing their original productions through exploring the binge-watching model of viewing (Jenner 305). As of January 2019, Hulu hit the mark of "25 million subscribers, a nearly 50 percent annual increase" if compared to the previous year (Alexander, Hulu hit 25 n. pag.), whereas around the same time, Amazon Prime (the membership programme of which Prime Video is only one of the services provided, also including shipping and music streaming) amassed more than 100 million members in the U.S. (Spangler, Amazon has more n. pag.). And just like Net ix has been able to deliver successful original productions, such as Stranger Things and Orange is the New Black, so have Amazon Prime Video (e.g. The Marvelous
9 "How Disney Wants to Take On Net ix With Its Own Streaming Services", reporting Iger's conference call with analysts to discuss the company's quarterly earnings | Source: Th e New York Times:
10 Link to the video covering the Apple's event on March 25, 2019, in which Apple executives introduced the company's latest developments, amongst which the Apple TV+ | Source: A pple's official YouTube page:
11 Hulu is a streaming service that is only available to users living in the United States - including Puerto Rico and U.S. military bases. According to the streamer’s Help Center page, “A Hulu subscription is intended for use by members of a single U.S. household. Therefore, you will need a U.S.-issued form of payment when you sign up” | Source: Hulu Help Center:
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Mrs. Maisel) and Hulu (e.g. The Handmaid's Tale) . Yet, even though Amazon and Hulu have been somewhat present as competition, they have not prevented Net ix from taking a leading position in the streaming race, especially if considered on an international level. It seems, however, that a few new additions to this race might give Net ix a serious run for its money, namely WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney and Apple.
As more and more companies join the streaming business, we start to see a fragmentation of content across di erent platforms. This translates to not only pre-existing archives of series and movies, but also to new and original programming. Net ix, for instance, was predicted by analysts to spend a staggering $15 billion dollars on their original content in 2019 alone (Spangler, Netflix spent $ n. pag.). Net ix's expansion of programming can be seen as a way to attract a wider and diversi ed audience, telling di erent stories and appealing to di erent groups of people, so as to cement its number one position in the streaming race, being backed up by its globally dispersed network of content distribution. The new companies entering this business seem to be following in the footsteps of Net ix, whether through taking advantage of a wealthy content library, or investing in a far-reaching infrastructure.
4.1. T he Net ix vs. Spielberg dilemma - if you can't beat them, join them!
On February 25, 2019, the Net ix Original drama lm Roma (2019) directed by Alfonso Cuarón, made headlines after snagging three golden statuettes at the 91st Academy Awards. Although this was not the rst time that a Net ix Original was nominated to or even won an Oscar12, it was the rst production to draw greater attention from the Academy and the public. In spite of the positive reception from critics and the public, the lm was still met with opposition from some in Hollywood who believed that it should not have been there in the rst place. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg was one of them, arguing that Roma would have been more appropriately placed in the Emmy Awards, as it is a format that mostly resembles that of television. He even went as far as proposing that the Academy should change its rules so that streaming services would be prevented from "competing in the Oscars without their projects getting a full theatrical run rst" (Roberts n. pag.). Currently, movies that have a one-week theatrical run in Los Angeles are already eligible for the Oscars (Oscars n. pag.)
Spielberg’s argument rekindles an ongoing debate around Net ix original lms: should they really be considered lms, as belonging to the lm industry? Or should they be considered lms for television (thus truly belonging to the Emmy Awards)? Net ix has, indeed, been tightly associated throughout its existence with television, as its rst experiments with original programming (e.g. House of Cards, Orange is the New Black) all followed a serialised format, despite having their episodes being made available all at once. Net ix’s chief content o cer, Ted Sarandos,
12 Net ix got its rst Oscar nomination back in 2014, with the Egyptian-American documentary lm, Th e Square. As of 2019, it has been nominated for a total of 29 times, winning six. Its rst Oscar win came in 2017, for Best Documentary (Short Subject), awarded to The White Helmets, a short documentary lm that was produced and distributed by Net ix.
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even a rmed, back in 2013, that the goal for them was “to become HBO faster than HBO can become us” (Hass n. pag.). The comparison to the subscription-based television network, responsible for original hit shows like The Sopranos and Game of Thrones, stemmed from a desire of the streaming service to be recognised as a liberating space for creators to explore di erent narratives, reinforced by Net ix’s commitment to full seasons upfront, and the healthy budgets for their productions (as House of Cards’ $100 million investment). Moreover, Sarandos also added that due to customers’ binge-viewing habits that are so common to Net ix, users experience the stories di erently. According to him, “It's going to further blur the line between television and movies” (Stenovec n. pag.). So, if the company initially took on television as its main point of reference, it has evolved over the years to allow for di erent media formats to be a part of its Originals setlist. In this scenario, getting Oscars is extremely valuable for Net ix, as it works as a hallmark for the quality of their original programming to both investors and its global audience. For investors, this means liability to keep investing on the streaming company, which in turn increases Net ix’s market and stock value. For the audience, it explains the recent rise in subscription fees, which the company justi es as a necessary measurement in order to invest more on its original programming.
The Net ix vs. Spielberg dilemma, however, could come to an end soon, as it was announced on April 2019 that the streamer had been in talks to buy the Egyptian Theatre - a historic movie theatre in Hollywood. Even though it was reported that Net ix’s primary use of the venue would be for special events, as well as weekday and evening premieres/screenings of its movies and TV shows, the theatre could easily be used by the streamer to ensure that their lms have the required theatrical runs in order to qualify for the Oscars (Malkin n. pag.). Back in 2018, Net ix was reported to have been in talks to purchase Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp lm studio, which the streaming company later denied; however, it still ignited a few questions about potential strategies of vertical integration on the part of the streamer, especially in light of the high amount of original movies that Net ix was producing. As far as distribution goes, Net ix already owns the exclusive rights to its original content, using its Internet-enabled platform to stream it online to a worldwide audience. Nonetheless, it must still resort to a movie theater if it wants to see its movies competing in the Oscars, and thus acquiring the Egyptian Theater seem to very much play to Net ix’s advantage. Following Fu’s discussion on the impacts of vertical integration on the Singapore cinema market, he says that “how long rental movies (i.e., those supplied by unintegrated distributors) stay on in a theater depends on the vertical structure and number of theaters owned by its parent chain” (Fu 77). That is, vertically integrated theaters would privilege those movies distributed by its parent company, whereas those owned by other distributors could have their run shortened. Now, that probably would not directly a ect movies from big lm distributors, but could potentially pose a threat to smaller distribution companies, as well as other streaming services that also wish to see their lms competing in the Oscars.
Curiously enough - or maybe not at all -, just a few weeks after advocating for changes in Oscar regulation that would make it harder for streaming services to become eligible for the awards show, Spielberg took part in the March 2019 Apple’s services event, in which the tech giant announced the launch of their own streaming service: Apple TV+. Spielberg was featured as one of
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the company’s secret weapons for this new product, which highlighted Apple’s big investment in original programming for their upcoming streaming service. Apple will be joined by a few other big names from the entertainment world, as these companies started to realise that streaming media is where the viewers are. This became evident in June 2017, when a report from the Leichtman Research Group showed that Net ix subscribers had, for the rst time, surpassed that of cable pay-TV providers in the U.S. (Morris n. pag.). And it was recently reinforced in March 2019, when The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) reported that streaming video subscriptions had risen to 613.3 million worldwide, surpassing the 556 million subscriptions from cable television (Liptak, The MPAA n. pag.). As more and more people opt to consume creative content through online streaming, more companies start to nd their way into the streaming world, making the race that much more competitive for Net ix and every other streaming service in the business.
4.2. T he wave of direct-to-consumer services soon joining the streaming race
Net ix. Amazon Prime Video. Hulu. X nity Stream. HBO Go. CBS All Access. DC Universe. Soon enough, these competitors in the streaming race will be joined by some big companies in the entertainment and media world: NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, Disney, and Apple are all scheduled to launch their own direct-to-consumer streaming service in either 2019 or 2020. Net ix has long co-existed with other streaming services in the market, out of which Amazon and Hulu have been their biggest competition. However, these latest additions to the race promise to have a greater impact on Net ix’s reign, whether for the infrastructural power they will make use of, or for the impact they will bring about on Net ix, content-wise.
Having established media brands such as Disney and WarnerMedia join the streaming race shows that digital platforms seem to be becoming the preferred economic and distribution model for the entertainment world. Anne Helmond described a similar process in her analysis of social media networks - such as Facebook - turning into social media platforms, mainly due to the programmability of their APIs, in a process that she referred to as the ‘platformisation of the web’. According to her, this refers “to the rise of the platform as the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web” (Helmond 5). This process also entails the rendering of external web data as platform-ready, that is, making it legible to communicate with the platform’s API. The same logic can be applied to the case of streaming services, in which content creators/distributors also take on the role of digital platforms at the time they are a orded programmability through their API. As platforms, they can programme user interaction and experience, for instance by making it possible to create an interactive lm such as Bandersnatch. Likewise, this (re)programmable interface also allows for the company to extract and store user data, as seen in the previous chapter, in the case of the technology policy researcher that discovered that all of his Bandersnatch choices had been recorder by Net ix (Porter, Netflix records all n. pag.). All of this data can give valuable insight to the company about behavioural patterns from their customers, which is very likely to be a big reason behind the many entertainment companies that are now joining the streaming/platform world.
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One of the biggest threats that Net ix currently faces amidst this scenario is the impact that it will have on its catalogue, as most of it is still comprised of licensed material from third party companies. In December 2018, Net ix had to pay the steep amount of $100 million to keep the hit sitcom Friends in its library for the following year, as part of an e ort for the company to maintain its second most-watched show in the U.S., a considerable increase from the $30 million per year that it had previously paid thus far (Lee n. pag.). This came about as a result of Warner Media, the entertainment conglomerate that holds the rights to Friends, announcing the release of its own streaming service. WarnerMedia was acquired by AT&T Inc., the world's largest telecommunications company, in June 2018, after a 15-month-long legal battle with the U.S. Justice Department. The judges that approved the merger argued that streaming services operate in a way that already leaned toward vertical integration, as “they distribute the content they create” (Gold n. pag.). WarnerMedia’s direct-to-customer service is set to be released as a beta version in late 2019, with a fully-scale release in 2020, joining the forces of the world’s largest telecom company with the world’s third-largest entertainment company (Brandom n. pag.). WarnerMedia is the parent company of networks such as CNN, TNT and Game of Thrones’ HBO. Furthermore, it also owns Warner Bros., one of Hollywood’s “Big Five”13 lm studios, which has the rights to popular lm franchises such as Harry Potter, and the DC Comics’ superhero lms (e.g. 2017’s Wonder Woman and 2018’s Aquaman) , as well as popular television shows. AT&T announced that it will bring the “agility and exibility needed” to coordinate brand-new original programming across di erent distribution models (WarnerMedia n. pag.). The company is betting on the breadth of diverse content that it owns to attract audiences, especially from HBO and Warner Bros., by restricting access to this material to members of their paid service, creating a "locked-in walled garden" (Plantin et al 301) which WarnerMedia/AT&T will have full control of. This is one of the advantages of opting for the platformisation of interfaciality, as having a direct-to-consumer interface means the relationship between the user and the service is adjusted to the logic of the platform, thus favouring the interests of the company behind it.
The case described above is very similar to that of NBCUniversal, which owns the rights to Net ix’s most watched show, The Office. Owned by telecommunications conglomerate Comcast Corporation, NBCUniversal's streaming service - set to launch in 2020 - will also bene t from the best of both worlds, disposing of a large library of popular content that will be backed up by the infrastructure of a big telecommunications company. The service, which will be free for NBCUniversal’s pay-cable subscribers in the U.S., will also be made available internationally for Comcast Cable- and Sky-subscribers, the latter which has been recently acquired by Comcast. With all of these audiences combined, the service will already be o ered for free to around 52 million customers (Mullin n. pag.), and in turn, will be supported by digital advertising. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke revealed that the company will release an ad-free, paid version of the service to those that do not have a paid-TV subscription, which will cost around $12 a month (Sherman and
13 “The ‘Big Five’ majors are all lm studios active since Hollywood's Golden Age. Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. were members of the original ‘Big Five’, but Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Walt Disney Pictures – did not gain their market shares until later.” | Source: Wikipedia -
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Boorstin n. pag.). In terms of the content that it will bring, the service will include live TV, such as news and sports programmes, as well as on-demand content, which will include new original programming, and a catalogue of existing titles. The company owns the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), one of the “Big Three”14 television networks in the U.S., and Universal Pictures, one of the “Big Five” lm studios. As such, NBCUniversal has the rights to popular TV shows, and blockbuster franchises such as Jurassic Park, as well as classics like 1975’s Jaws. Finally, through its subsidiary animation studios DreamWorks Animation and Illumination, the company owns the rights to the How To Train Your Dragon and Despicable Me franchises, meaning the service will have a huge appeal to younger audiences. NBCUniversal will be taking advantage of its platformisation of interfaciality in order to cater to the taste of several audiences, as it is constituted as a multisided market, aggregating di erent kinds of agents within its platform ecosystem (Nieborg and Poell 3-4). In this con guration, it can set managerial strategies that bene t from its network of di erent agents, allowing the service, for instance, to be free for NBC-, Comcast- and Sky- subscribers. These users are described as the 'subsidy side', that is, participants who get to use the service for free, as opposed to the 'money side', "where the platform makes more than enough money to o set those losses" (Evans and Schmalensee 93-94). The money side, in the case of this service, entails the digital advertising that will support the service. And to cater to those users that prefer an ad-free service, NBCUniversal will also o er a paid version, and so the money side will take the shape of subscription fees, re-creating the ‘locked-in w alled garden’ concept.
WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal will most de nitely be strong contenders in the streaming race, however it might be in Disney that Net ix will face its biggest challenge when it comes to original content, as one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world is set to launch its own streaming service in 2019, Disney+. Throughout its history, The Walt Disney Company has made some strategic acquisitions15, being the parent company of several cable networks, such as ESPN, National Geographic, Disney Channel, and ABC (also one of the “Big Three” television networks in the U.S.). The company also disposes of a lm division, the Walt Disney Studios, another member of the “Big Five” lm studios. Through its lm division, Disney owns Marvel and Lucas lm, meaning that it has ownership over popular cinematic brands, such as the Avengers series, as well as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. With the purchase in July 2018 of mass media corporation 21st Century Fox, Disney owns the television and lm subdivisions of 20th Century Fox (Byers and Goldman, n. pag.), acquiring the rights to animated sitcom The Simpsons, as well as the X-Men franchise, old Hollywood movie classics, and box o ce blockbusters such as 1997’s Titanic and 2009’s Avatar. Moreover, Disney+ will certainly make use of the company’s extensive array of animated movies, as it owns the Pixar Animation Studios (with popular franchises like Toy Story, and The Incredibles) , and the Walt Disney Animation Studios (with recent popular titles like 2013’s Frozen, and all of the old Disney classics, such as 1937’s Snow White and
14 “The ‘Big Three’ television networks are the three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), CBS (formerly known as the Columbia Broadcasting System) and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).” | Source: Wikipedia -
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the Seven Dwarfs, and 1994’s The Lion King) . The company’s domestic market share in 2018 was of 26.1%, which means that more than a quarter of the money spent on tickets at the box o ce in the U.S. were for movies owned by Disney (McNary n. pag.). As of June, 2019, out of the ten highest-grossing lms of all time, eight are owned by Disney, with the company taking over all of the top ve spots. All of this content will be put to Disney’s advantage when it releases its streaming service, Disney+, in November 12, 2019, for a $6,99 monthly fee (Mendelson n. pag.), which will also o er exclusive new original programming involving the Avengers and Star Wars universes. As particular focus is being given on joining the service in order to enjoy all of Disney’s existing and forthcoming popular content, the platform is also re-creating a ‘locked-in walled garden’ ecosystem, and making use of personalisation features, as users will be able to “create their own custom avatars with Disney characters and build individual pro les” (Thorbecke n. pag.). The catering of personalised experiences for each individual user, by means of associating their pro les on the service to the company’s brand (i.e., ‘Disney characters’), is another example of the platformisation of interfaciality, which ties a person’s usage of and experience with the service to the brand of the company, which could help in making sure users will stay within their platform ecosystem amidst so many other o erings from the streaming world.
Last but not least, the streaming race will also soon see the arrival of a company that has not necessarily been associated with content creation in the form of lms and TV series, but rather with a legacy of computational and technological innovation: Apple Inc. The multinational technology company announced the release of its own streaming service, Apple TV+, in a press event in March 2019 that focused on all the latest releases by Apple (Garun n. pag.). The streaming service (which as of the time of this writing, has not yet unveiled a price), will be ad-free, viewable online and o ine, and will be made available in 100+ countries (Welch n. pag.). When announcing Apple TV+, the event gathered several Hollywood content creators that will be involved in the making of Apple’s original shows, from directors such as Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, to actors like Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell, wrapping up with none other than Oprah Winfrey. Looking back on its history as one of the companies that led to the rise of the personal computing in the 70s, Apple contributed to the “transformation of a traditional monopoly infrastructure model into the deregulated, privatized, and splintered—we might say “platformized”—infrastructure model” (Plantin et al. 301). The press event that announced Apple TV+ did not give away too many details about the service. However, its importance and its strength was perhaps better explained by a remark by Oprah, when referring to Apple's global network of active devices: "They're in a billion pockets, y'all. A billion pockets" (Oprah Winfrey).
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4.3. W orldwide distribution - that matters!
On March 3, 2019, American director Ava DuVernay posted the following tweet to her personal account16:
In the post, Duvernay advocated for the importance of having her lms be distributed on a large scale internationally, as they touch upon important subjects such as black representation, both on- and o -screen, arguing that Net ix has been the one place that has enabled her to do just that. When it comes to its content library, Net ix’s licensed material varies from one country to the other, due to di erent agreements that the owner of that content - e.g. a lm studio or a cable network - might have done in each country. However, this scenario changes when talking about Net ix Originals, that is, either in-house productions or third-party content that Net ix has acquired exclusive rights for. According to the company’s help centre page, even though there are a small number of Net ix Originals that are not available in all regions (for instance, due to previous agreements made by Net ix when the service itself was still not available in that country), most of the streamer’s Originals are, since they “own all the rights to the title and can stream it anywhere in the world” (Net ix Help Center, H ow does Netflix n. pag.).
When watching Alfonso Cuarón's Roma (a Mexican-American lm), or maybe an episode of Money Heist or Dark (a Spanish and a German show, respectively), users might instantly
16 Link to Ava Duvernay’s tweet:
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perceive them as being a universally accessible content belonging to this global brand called 'Net ix'. As the streamer is “not beholden to terrestrial television” (Newton n. pag.), Net ix's architecture is similar to that of the online sphere of the Open Web, whose components and protocols render it "decentralized and without technically de ned or technically enforced boundaries" (Plantin et al. 302). Furthermore, as digital platforms that a ord connectivity and active participation from various users, services like Net ix dispense the need for highly expensive distribution channels (such as the case with cable or satellite television), once users make use of their own standard Internet connection, enabling the sharing, delivery and storage of digital content at a larger scale (Benkler 63-85). This architectural model is composed of technical arrangements that facilitate the connection between a distributed network of heterogeneous elements (e.g. users' computers and Net ix's data centres). Speaking in more infrastructure-speci c terms, these systems create sociotechnical gateways, which emerge in order to link the heterogeneous elements that compose an infrastructure into a network, achieving technical compatibility (Egyedi and Spirco 948-949). One of these gateways is Net ix's API, for instance, which on the one hand enables an array of apps (whether mobile- or desktop-based) to connect and exchange data with the system, which is crucial in the case of interactive products such as Bandersnatch. On the other hand, its API also constraints and delimits usage of the app, both for consumers and content providers, in that it creates a "locked-in walled garden" (Plantin et al. 301), meaning that users are constrained within Net ix's subscription-based ecology, which is controlled by the streamer according to their own terms of use.
So what are the implications of this platformised and infrastructuralised architecture of Net ix to their distribution strategies, especially if compared to traditional entertainment companies? It is interesting to recall the example of the drama series You, which originally was watched by an average of 1.1 million viewers during its linear run on TV channel Lifetime (Porter, Netflix reveals viewership n. pag.), and after being picked up by Net ix, was predicted to being watched by 40 million households in its rst month in the streamer. The number released by Net ix took into account a global audience, and not one that is restricted to U.S. territory, which was the case for Lifetime. Net ix trespassed its national borders and expanded into a worldwide service, distributing content all around the world, despite being a US-headquartered company. This con guration, which can be one of the main reasons why big entertainment companies like Disney and WarnerMedia are joining the streaming race, resembles the architectural model described by The Stack, as proposed by Benjamin Bratton. In his book, Bratton addressed the emergence of planetary-scale computation inscribing technological systems and platforms at the level of urban scale, while governing information ows that, in turn, produce new territories in their own image (Bratton 5-6). This ‘accidental megastructure’, as he calls it, can be seen as a general logic for platforms, being vertically formed by a stack of six interlocking layers: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface and User (Bratton 11). The same way that Bratton used the model to analyse global information systems, such as Google, I argue that it can also be employed to understand the case of Net ix. The streaming service is, likewise, a digital platform that has grown to a planetary scale, governing ows of entertainment content across the world, and developing original programmes in multiple countries that span di erent languages and continents, which are all branded under the
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same category: Net ix Original. Talking to CNBC about Net ix's expansion into the Asian market by means of investing in more Mandarin-language Net ix Originals, chief content o cer Ted Sarandos said: "The exciting part about that is that we’re able to come in and produce locally, using local story-tellers, and tell those stories on a grand scale because we can nd a global audience" (Gilchrist n. pag.).
According to its Investors webpage, Net ix developed in 2011 its 'Open Connect' programme, partnering up with hundreds of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) across the world, with which they established a direct regional connection instead of having to go through third-party transit providers, lowering the costs for both Net ix and ISPs (Net ix Investors n. pag.). The Open Connect network is Net ix's own content delivery network (CDN), and as of 2016, is connected to nearly 1000 di erent locations around the world (Figure 10). Instead of making use of the internet’s 'backbone' capacity, such as expensive undersea cables, the company copies "each le once from [their] US-based transcoding repository to the storage locations within Australia" (Net ix Media Center, How Netflix works n. pag.), for instance, which is done during o -peak hours. This content is re-distributed to the other local servers from the ISPs that are connected to Net ix's Open Connect network, which then feed the computers and devices of the users that are closest to them (Figure 11). This way, when a user in Australia logs in to Net ix, the system connects to the CDN server closest to them, instead of establishing a connection to the main Net ix server in the U.S.
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Net ix depends on a dispersed and robust infrastructure that enables Internet-connected devices spread out across the world to enjoy its services, and the reason why it can release its original productions instantly in over 190 countries. The same way that Plantin et al. spoke of the ‘infrastructuralisation of platforms’, I argue that the same is applicable to the context of streaming services, which have been originally formed as digital platforms themselves. The infrastructuralisation of streaming services shows that these distribution networks are formed similarly to the large technical systems described by infrastructure scholars, in which interconnected components are designed and centrally controlled for the purpose of performance optimisation (Hughes 5), as seen by Net ix’s Open Connect programme, localising the connections to ISPs closest to the users instead of having to upstream it from the internet through a transit provider, which lowers the costs for both sides.
The applicability of The Stack model in the context of Net ix becomes even more apparent if considered that its complex infrastructure is, on the streamer’s part, entirely cloud-based. The company started its cloud migration in 2008, and by January 2016, had shut down its last remaining data center, choosing Amazon Web Services17 (AWS) to be their cloud provider, for their
17 Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon, is a cloud platform that owns and maintains the hardware (servers, databases, etc.) necessary for the provision of services over the Internet. In other words, AWS o ers "IT
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global-scale cloud network and broad o ering of services (Net ix Media Center, Completing the Netflix Cloud n. pag.). While AWS focuses on maintaining the hardware, Net ix developed a multi-tiered cloud structure for its service applications that it called a microservices architecture, with an estimate of 700 microservices. Each one of them is responsible for one service: one is for charging the subscription fees from users' credit cards; one is for redirecting the correct video les to the user's device; one is for storing the data about the shows and lms that are watched; one is for running its algorithms through the user's viewing history to determine suggested shows; and so on (Nair n. pag.). This multi-tiered architecture exempli es the nature behind Net ix's operationalisation, one that is formed by a stack of layers that communicate with each other, but still operate independently to a certain degree. This is done to ensure that Net ix's engineers can make speci c changes to one of the applications without bringing the whole service to a crash (Nair n. pag.), for instance allowing the company to remove the real-life footage about a 2013 train derailment case in Canada from their movie Bird Box, three months after the lm started streaming, in light of on-going online protest (Hollister n. pag.). The new version, which replaced the derailment footage with ctional material, was updated in the streamer without causing any crash to the service as a whole.
When watching a show on Net ix, what users experience of the service is mainly its Graphic User Interface (GUI), which is just one layer of Net ix's multi-tiered infrastructure. In other words, when users watch something on Net ix, they not only interface with the visual signs and commands on the screen, but also with the AWS servers that support Net ix's Cloud infrastructure. They also interface with the local ISPs connected to its Open Connect network, and “because these framings localize interactions within a global platform, they can control the distribution of bits, objects, and a ects according to those curves” (Bratton 230). This con guration leverages Net ix's operations, taking advantage of the dispersed and global nature of the Open Web, and not having its services be restricted to terrestrial boundaries, despite being an American company.
Distributing audiovisual content internationally has been done for a long time by established entertainment companies such as Disney and WarnerMedia, whether through partnering with local television broadcasters or with local lm distribution companies. However, not only can this strategy be highly costly, it also has to deal with other countries' legislation and regulation for audiovisual content. Being an online service, Net ix can most times bypass these nancial and bureaucratic obstacles, and operate globally for a much cheaper cost, as well as using their members' regular ISPs to provide connectivity to their network. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why established media and entertainment companies are launching their own streaming services. The danger to Net ix is that these companies will already have a head start in the infrastructuralisation of their services, in terms of internet provision and global accessibility. WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal are both owned by a telecommunications conglomerate whose services include internet provision: AT&T and Comcast, respectively, with the latter being the
infrastructure services to businesses in the form of web services -- now commonly known as cloud computing". | Source: h ttps://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/ (About AWS)
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largest Internet Service Provider in the U.S. Meanwhile, Disney has an extensive list of media holdings that is has purchased over the years, more noticeably with the acquisition of 21st Century Fox. It also fully controls and has the majority stake of Hulu, and therefore can use its infrastructure to build a bridge to its Disney+ service. Finally, Apple TV+ seems to be the one service whose distribution plans might be the most leveraged by the global infrastructure that is owned by Apple, as the ad-free service will be available in 100+ countries as a section of the already existing Apple TV app. As of January 2019, “Apple had reached 1.4 billion active iOS devices” (Welch n. pag.), which will be critical in guaranteeing the success of Apple TV+.
Despite the threat that these companies pose to Net ix, the streamer stated that its focus is not on Disney+, Apple TV+, or any other service in the streaming race, but rather on how Net ix can improve the experience for their users18. Moreover, Net ix's Investors page de nes their long-term view as a “hope to continue being one of the leading rms of the internet entertainment era” (Net ix Investors n. pag.). If considered that internet entertainment can take the form of various digital media objects, other than lm and TV shows, who is Net ix then truly competing with?
4.4. T he battle for consumer screen time
Referring back to the Spielberg vs. Net ix controversy, and whether Net ix original lms such as Roma should be eligible for the Oscars or not, where should Black Mirror: Bandersnatch t in all this? It is a self-entitled Net ix original lm, which following Spielberg’s reasoning should be regarded as a lm for television; however, Bandersnatch also makes use of video game-like interactive features. Should Net ix, in this case, be seen as a direct competitor to video game companies?
Well, the streaming service might have already tipped the answer to this question. A letter sent to the company’s shareholders on January 17, 2019, reads the following: “We earn consumer screen time, both mobile and television, away from a very broad set of competitors. We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO” (Fung n. pag.). The product that Net ix is referring to in its shareholder letter, Fortnite, is an online video game that is produced and distributed by Epic Games. The free-to-play game (which also o ers paid editions with additional features) is available in three di erent game modes, one of which being Fortnite Battle Royale, the company’s biggest hit. Launched in September, 2017, the battle-royale-style19 game built a huge following base of 125 million players in less than one year of being active, according to an announcement in the company’s blog post (The Fortnite Team n. pag.), becoming one of the most played video games on
18 This statement was made by Net ix in its January 2019 quarterly earnings report, addressed to the company's shareholders:
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the market, being compared “to other big titles such as 2004’s World of Warcraft and 2009’s Minecraft” (Tsukayama n. pag.). By November 2018, the game obtained the mark of 200 million registered users to its count (Fingas n. pag.). For comparison’s sake, in January 2019 (thus only two months after Fortnite’s announcement), Net ix disclosed that its user-base had reached a total of 139 million subscriptions, which albeit is a record count for the streamer, still fell short in comparison with Epic Games’ 200 million mark.
Certainly what is most interesting to take away from this discussion is not what kind of box that Net ix products should t into. As far as Bandersnatch goes, it is not about whether it should be regarded as Net ix’s way into the gaming industry, or whether Net ix will evolve into a games platform itself to solely compete with Epic Games’ Fortnite. What is most valuable for this analysis - and for the understanding of Net ix as a digital platform - is how this episode shows that the real commodity at play in this industry is Internet users’ attention. As an online-based service, enabled by and dependent on Internet-connected devices, Net ix competes with every company that distributes digital media, and not only with those that also produce streaming video. Following Terranova’s discussion of the attention economy, the age of digital platforms and Big Data have rendered users’ attention as scarce and impoverished, constantly being consumed by digital platforms and services that aim to keep their customers connected for as long as possible (7). In its Media Center webpage, Net ix describes itself as “the world's leading internet entertainment service”, and “leading the way for digital content” (Net ix Media Center, About Netflix n. pag.). Therefore, any service that also seeks to entertain Internet users with digital content is competing with Net ix. Having 200 million users being registered to Fortnite (which, even if not all of them are regular players, still indicates a large portion that is), what this essentially means for Net ix is that there are a lot of potential Net ix users who are choosing to spend their time playing the online game instead, meaning that they end up accounting for less of consumers’ screen time than they wished for.
WarnerMedia’s CEO John Stankey said, during the trial that analysed the company's acquisition by AT&T, that time and attention are what they are truly competing for: "Facebook, Google, Net ix — they are all distracting people from other things they used to do ... That's the battle here” (Gold n. pag.). All of these companies seek to consume their users’ attention to the utmost, and as attention becomes a scarce commodity as discussed by Terranova, there is only so much of it that can be consumed. In this line of thought, Marshall McLuhan’s “The medium is the message” proves, once again, to still be a current and fruitful framework of analysis. The content that is distributed on Net ix (and the format it takes, whether it is a lm, a series, an interactive game or a merge of all previous options) is a less important topic of discussion than understanding the medium in which it operates. Being a digital platform that makes use of a large and complex infrastructure leveraged Net ix’s operationalisation in consuming Internet users’ attention, and being the rst company to capitalise over that in the context of online-based content producers of lm and serialised shows, its advantage lies in being far ahead of the competition. Its strategies and constant updates to its service demonstrate Net ix’s concern with improving its platform so as to consume more of its users’ time and attention.
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On January 2019, the company released a feature that allowed users to share a movie or show from the Net ix app directly onto their Instagram Stories (Bell n. pag.), an example of the multisided market-con guration of the platform (Nieborg and Poell 4) and the function of its API in serving as a sociotechnical gateway for the interoperability between Net ix and Instagram (Egyedi and Spirco 948). With this feature, Net ix gets direct access to Instagram’s massive audience, encouraging users to share what they have been watching with their own network of followers (Figure 12), thus indirectly consuming this new-found audience's attention, and potentially attracting them to go and check the content in the platform themselves. This quest for consuming user's attention, however, is even more apparent with a more recent (potential) update to Net ix's platform. On June 21, 2019, technology news portal Engadget reported that Net ix seemed to be testing a new 'pop-out player' feature, which appeared in a few of their users' accounts (Fisher, Netflix's pop-out n. pag.). Such a feature would allow users to minimise shows and movies they were watching into a small oating screen, hovering above the browser's window even if the user navigates through other websites and applications (Figure 13). In a time when people are so used to multi-tasking and using multiple screens at the same time, dividing their attention amongst
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di erent services, this feature can be useful for Net ix in guaranteeing that they will be consuming at least a share of their user's attention, meaning that even if they are busy playing Fortnite, they can still remain logged in to their Net ix account, enjoying of the streamer's latest releases. As of the time of this writing, there was no con rmed announcement by Net ix about the release of this new feature. However, the fact that it is being tested in a few selected accounts shows the company's investment in testing new ways to programme its platform so that it thrives in its quest to earn consumer screen time.
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5. C o ncluding remarks
From its ambition to become the "A mazon.com of something besides books" (Keating 17), to reaching the milestone of 148.8 million subscriptions worldwide, Net ix bet on the transition from linear to on-demand entertainment, cementing itself as one of the leading gures in the streaming world. As an online-based service, operating in over 190 countries, the company de nes as its long-term view “to continue being one of the leading rms of the internet entertainment era” (Net ix Investors n. pag.), leading the company to spend a total of $12 billion dollars on original content in 2018 alone, with analysts predicting that number to grow to $15 billion in 2019. With a large catalogue of lms, series, and documentaries, Net ix has also been investing in interactive productions, releasing its rst big success with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, which led the company's head of product, Todd Yellin, to a rm that Net ix would be doubling down on interactive storytelling in 2019. The release of Bandersnatch came in a time when the streaming race is getting considerably more competitive for Net ix, as established entertainment companies have announced the launch of their own streaming services, namely WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, and Disney, as well as tech giant, Apple.
This thesis sought to probe the current scenario involving the entertainment world and, more speci cally, the streaming industry, by analysing current events and developments concerning important shifts in this business, so as to ultimately understand the interests behind the companies that are e ecting these changes. For such, Net ix was taken as the main object of study, with the intention of shifting the lens from regarding it as a content provider/distributor, and focus on its role as a data-driven digital platform that operates according to a complex and physical infrastructure. With this in mind, I laid out a theoretical framework that built upon scholarly contribution made by platform studies and infrastructure studies, taking as a starting point the work of Plantin et al., and their proposed theoretical bifocal approach. Combining the two theoretical strands enabled a comprehensive look on the dual-nature of Net ix as a platform, with features such as programmability and data collection through its API, as well as an infrastructure, with a physical- and Cloud-based network of heterogeneous elements that renders Net ix as a ubiquitous, reliable and widely shared service. This approach also allowed the thesis to draw from scholarly work, as I have proposed two new contributions to the eld: the platformisation of interfaciality, and the infrastructuralisation of streaming services. The rst phenomenon is a direct contribution to other works that have approached the concept of platformisation (Helmond; Nieborg and Poell; Navar-Gill), which I have proposed to look at its e ects on the interfacial regime in Net ix. The second phenomenon I proposed is an expansion of Plantin et al.'s work on the infrastructuralisation of platforms, in this case applied to the context of streaming services.
The analysis of this thesis was concentrated on two case studies related to Net ix and the streaming world that represent important shifts to the industry: the release of Bl ack Mirror: Bandersnatch, and the wave of big media companies that are joining the streaming race, such as Disney and Apple. The rst case points to a possibility of streaming video services (which have been mostly associated with the distribution of lms and TV series) to experiment with di erent
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formats, such as interactivity, which presents users and creators with new possibilities for storytelling, but also a ords the platform to collect more precise data about their users. As for the second case, having WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney, and Apple join the streaming race demonstrate how platforms are becoming the main economic and business model in the entertainment world, partially due to its Open Web infrastructure, which facilitates content distribution on a global scale. In order to tackle both cases, I put forth the following research question: In what ways can Bandersnatch be seen as a strategy for Net ix against the big media and entertainment companies joining the streaming race? Having the research question be concise and simple is useful in order to address some concrete remarks related to the case studies, while still relating to a broader discussion of the theoretical debates approached in this thesis. Therefore, in light of the rising competition from established entertainment companies in the streaming race, B andersnatch can be seen as a useful strategy for Net ix in terms of:
5.1. I nteractivity yields more data concerning users' behavioural patterns
As Net ix's head of product, Todd Yellin, a rmed, Net ix is interested in ‘people’s behaviour’, as “[w]hat they tend to watch is much more important than what they say they like. So [they] got much more into behavioural metrics”. Net ix has long been collecting user data from its members thanks to its application programming interface (API), which according to Yellin, has been focused on representing user behaviour. However, there is only so much that can be done with the data that is collected from linear shows. Interactivity, on the other hand, requires active participation from the user. Similarly to Espen Aarsheth's ergodic literature, an interactive programme can be seen as a "labyrinth, a game, or an imaginary world, in which the reader can explore at will, get lost, discover secret paths, play around, follow the rules, and so on" (3). Instructions laid out by a promotional video for Bandersnatch, mentioned at the beginning of chapter three, suggest that the user should take as long as they need when making a choice, with the main character stating: “I should try again". Interactivity can be a gold mine of behavioural metrics if people engage with the content being watched and experiment di erent paths. Furthermore, letting users choose how the storyline unfolds in a lm like Bandersnatch gives Net ix the possibility to generate patterns and trends for user preference, which can be used to improve personalisation features (such as customised thumbnails), as well as inform of what kinds of stories users what to see, the same way that it did with H ouse of Cards, only now in a process that is even more informed by behavioural metrics.
5.2. Interactivity can make way to new revenue sources
As mentioned previously, the rst choice presented to the user when watching Bandersnatch is between two brands of breakfast cereal - “Sugar Pu s” or “Frosties”. Later on, the user is asked to choose between two options of cassette tapes, which not only is listened by the character of the lm, but also by the users themselves, as the music is played as the soundtrack of the scene. Both features demonstrate how Interactivity can be used for making way to new revenue sources for
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Net ix. These two examples can generate user metrics about product and musical preference, meaning that the streamer could use it to its favour in employing new market strategies such as product placement or data-mining deals with record labels. Data-informed decision making is a process that is constantly increasing across di erent business, and thus can be used by Net ix as a new form of revenue. This way, the company could have these new-found revenue sources as the ‘money side’ of their platform, allowing for the company to maybe turn its basic subscription plan into a free service, similar to Facebook and Fortnite, once this new ‘money side’ would o set the losses of the ‘subsidy side’ (i.e. the users). This strategy could be used as a means to lure more users to the service. Furthermore, as the company localises the user-service interactions to the local ISPs (a feature of the multi-layered nature of Net ix, as a vertical structure in the mold of The Stack), these product placement strategies could be tailored to the context of the user's location.
5.3. I nteractivity can aid Net ix in the battle for consumer screen time
As a company that seeks to maintain its position as “one of the leading rms of the internet entertainment era” (Net ix Investors n. pag.), Net ix is competing for screen time with every other company selling entertainment on the Internet (such as Fortnite) . As attention becomes a scarce commodity that companies are competing for, interactive features can be used as a way to make people be more engaged with the content they are consuming, thus spending more time in the platform. The 'pop-out player' feature that Net ix has been testing indicates how the company is seeking to guarantee the consumption of at least a share of their users' screen time. However, Interactivity can still be a useful tool in guaranteeing that users will stay connected to the service for the duration of the programme, as active engagement is necessary in order to traverse the narrative.
5.4. P ossible avenues for future research
As WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney, and Apple prepare to launch their own streaming services, Net ix's Bandersnatch - and more broadly, interactive programming - a ords interesting possibilities that the streamer can make use of as a strategy to maintain its leading position in the streaming race. Namely, (1) all of the behavioural metrics it yields, (2) new possibilities for revenue sources (such as product placement), and (3) consuming more of users’ screen time. The platformisation of interfaciality enables the creation and distribution of a product such as Bandersnatch, for its programmable user-service interaction that also includes the collection of data through its API. Furthermore, the infrastructuralisation of streaming services resulted in these platforms equipping themselves to enable its online operations, whether through creating devices that support these products, or connecting to a network that reaches a global-scale. This, in turn, contributes to making platforms the preferred business and economic model for the entertainment world.
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Making use of trade press analysis as my main source of information gathering has been extremely fruitful for this thesis, in that it provided an up-to-date coverage of the events and developments related to the two case studies approached, that is, the release of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, and the wave of big media companies joining the streaming race. However, given the volatile nature of the events and developments analysed in this thesis, the writing process sought in no way to have an exhaustive discussion of these topics, but rather serve as a contribution to the understanding of the dual-nature of Net ix as a platform and infrastructure, and its role in the streaming industry within the eld of new media and platform studies. Further research can be done by following the next events and developments concerning the two case studies approached in this thesis, whether analysing the next interactive productions released by Net ix, or looking at the streaming services from WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Disney, and Apple once they are launched, so as to see the real impact they will have on the streaming world and on Net ix. Moreover, this research could also be expanded by focusing on the algorithmic identity that is formed of every user on Net ix, for instance by approaching John Cheney-Lippold and his work on modulating control, and apply his proposed terms of ‘soft biopower’ and ‘soft biopolitics’ in the context of Net ix.
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