Netflix’s Business Model Is Golden Corral for Movies

A recent, excellent article by Will Tavlin for n+1 magazine explores a hypothesis we’ve all considered: That Netflix knows, and just doesn’t care, that its original movies are unwatchable. 

He covers many of the common gripes — that every movie they release is somehow the “most-watched movie on the planet” despite no living soul able to name a single character under threat of death. That everything they produce looks extremely similar. That they’re pumping out movies so fast that some of them seemingly don’t even have time to be properly titled, released with names one smidgen of syntax above “SpyThriller_AnthonyMackie.mp4.” 

Reading bits of collected industry gossip, like the fact that some executives supposedly greenlight scripts they’ve never read, just further confirms that Netflix’s movies being god-awful is no accident.

As I read Tavlin’s piece, a nagging comparison solidified itself in my brain. One that finally adequately described my relationship with Netflix. Which is that, if we map the movie industry to the world of dining, Netflix is the infamous buffet-based chain, Golden Corral. We’re pounding our tables, firing complaints back to the chefs, who are probably reading them in mocking voices and laughing so hard it strains their dirty apron strings. They know our outrage over how much we hated our mac-and-cheese/calamari combination plate is impotent regardless, since we paid when we walked in. 

You don’t go to Golden Corral to have a meal. You go to pack your guts with slop for a flat price.

This isn’t a question of pure quality, though. It’s not that Netflix makes bad movies. It’s that their approach to the business they’re supposedly in is unapproachable from any artistic perspective. If Golden Corral’s mission statement could be “we have food,” Netflix’s could be “we have movies.” 

If they had clear intent, but fell short on quality, I could at least upgrade them to the role of a fast-food chain. McDonald’s is never getting a Michelin star, but they do have a goal, which is consistency. McDonald’s is like a studio pumping out endless sequels. Is the new Spider-Man going to win any Oscars? No, but when I consume it, I know what it will contain and what it will generally taste like: fight scenes, fun villains and snappy dialogue on a sesame seed bun. Netflix doesn’t seem to be trying to make a good hamburger, or even care what happens when you bite into it. They’re just trying to fill a heating tray with something that looks enough like a hamburger that you will think “they have hamburgers here.”

At anything commonly considered a restaurant, if you tell the staff that their food made you sick, you’ll get an apology and a promise to do better. After all, they implicitly promised you not only a meal, but one they could feasibly think you’d enjoy eating. Do you know what you do when an item at Golden Corral makes you nauseous? You scrape that plate into the trash and go back to load up on different filth. Nobody comes by to ask you, “How is everything?” because it’s an irrelevant question. 

Similarly, Netflix makes so many inexplicable movies that having an opinion on any of them is a waste of time better served by just watching something else to get the taste out of your mouth. Even professional critics barely bother to review half of Netflix’s movies anymore. Because who’s writing, much less reading, a Yelp review of Golden Corral? What are you going to say: “Steer clear of the coconut shrimp”? There’s no guarantee those shrimp are even there tomorrow. 

Given Netflix’s aggressive, shifting algorithms, you’re always sailing forth into uncharted territory, labeled “here there be many horrible romantic comedies."

It succeeds despite all of this because, the truth is, I fucking love Golden Corral. The only people who don’t are liars who can’t successfully grapple with the fact that shame doesn’t exist divorced from pleasure. You don’t go to Golden Corral because you want to eat something, you go to Golden Corral because you want to engage in the general act of eating. You can say that Golden Corral doesn’t have good food, but you can’t possibly say that they don’t have food. They sell a sensation of mind-quieting plenty, the knowledge that you’re in a building where the sensation of hunger is barred from entry. 

I could go to Golden Corral, eat absolutely nothing, and still leave with a full stomach — sitting at a table, inhaling the smell of calories themselves, imagining myself, the size of a thimble, nestled in between rows of constantly replaced dumplings. The same way I sometimes find myself wading through endless shelves of slipping and sliding thumbnails, until I have no answer for what exactly I’d just spent a half-hour watching other than: Netflix.