The point is that even the best of "them" is still not helping the individual. Netflix isn't giving back to society, because we can't archive their works legally or lend them out at a public library.
Recording technology seems to have given us a collective case of viparinama dukkha with respect to popular culture. Perhaps it's OK for art to be ephemeral.
True, though certainly its employees are paying taxes. Netflix reported a profit of $558.9 million on 2017 and is on Pace to blow that out of the water this year. You're saying none of that was taxable? I get that there are plenty of ways to avoid paying taxes on profits, but really, they paid _nothing_?
It's all rather beside the point anyway. Saying that Netflix privdes no individual or societal benefit is just wrong.
Of all the FAANG companies, Netflix is certainly the one with the most benign societal impact. They provide entertainment. They don’t take a lot from the consumer to do it. It’s entirely reasonable to use a viewer’s watching history to show them things they might like. It’s less defensible to take someone’s web history to show them things they probably don’t want (ads), track people using facial recognition, turn a blind eye towards work conditions at Chinese suppliers, or treat workers like shit while crushing mom and pop retailers in their wake. Even worse is encouraging people to share things about their lives and using it to hypertarget ads.
Netflix isn't giving back to society, because we can't archive their works legally or lend them out at a public library.
This makes no sense to me. I can't archive a live theatre performance or lend it out either, but I still consider many enjoyable evenings I've spent watching a show to be worth the price of admission. I couldn't keep the video cassettes I used to rent so I could watch again later, but I still considered the fee worth paying so I could enjoy a film I otherwise hadn't seen.
Netflix also provides a temporary benefit, but in practice it almost always has enough new films or shows that I enjoy watching but wouldn't necessarily want to rewatch to justify the monthly membership fee. Given that my alternative way to watch that material would typically be buying it in a fixed format such as DVD/Blu-ray at a higher price, even though having a permanent copy offered me little extra benefit, clearly Netflix is providing a useful service that does, at least for me, offer reasonable value for money.
Wouldn't it have been nice to have a video of the first Shakespeare performances? Archiving isn't just for future enjoyment, but for understanding the past.
That sounds like a criticism of capitalism rather than a criticism of Netflix.
For me personally, Netflix makes enough good content (and hopefully pays artists well in the process) that the amount I pay is worth it. I want them to do little or no harm, but if I only patronized businesses that actively give back to society, I'd never be able to buy most classes of goods.
However, most of Stallman's post is, while accurate, a complaint of how we are being charged minimally by Netflix for a minimal access to media. If we could pay by cash in the post, on a player that didn't protect from ripping then it would cost more.
Calm down, the cultural significant works will make it to the libraries, sociaty is not at a huge loss that the libraries aren’t stocking the next season of game of thrones as its airing.
You won't see Netflix intentionally not working on Chromecast in order to sell their own dongles and tie users to its own ecosystem.
Their business is video streaming, so their motivation will be to make sure as many paying users can access their content as possible.
In contrast, the giants can just use their services as a way towards greater vendor lock-in.