Streaming has ruined media? Hasn't it.
I think it's more subtle than that.
Y'know how Tesla is valuated at more than like, the next three auto-companies combined, despite building 2/5ths as many cars each year as Ford? A . . . fairly small (as huge companies go) car company whose main relevance comes from selling the red blooded American institution that is the F-150?
A good chunk of that is because Tesla is perceived not as a 'car company' but as a 'tech company'. And because technology is the only thing that can actually generate long term growth faster than the population grows and new resources are accessed, a tech company, unlike any other kind of company, can 'do anything' and therefore it's futures can shoot to the moon with the promise of 'disrupting the industry'.
Which is also why Elon Musk is constantly getting on twitter and telling us how Tesla will build fully autonomous AI robot maids that will replace all human labor . . . Because if he doesn't promise that, sooner or later, people are going to notice that Tesla is just a car company that makes a, eh fairly neat, Electric car that has some questionable marketing around its driver assist.
Netflix and other streaming services were perceived as 'tech companies'. But really all they are, are cable providers that use slightly more flexible digital decoders than the old cable boxes and offer a better on demand service.
But the problem is, due to their explosive growth, as they displaced the previous services and models, they were perceived as tech, and their investors expect tech growth numbers.
The only way to offer those numbers up to the VC gods is to perform fuck fuck games with the company valuation. Layoffs please the VC gods, because layoffs mean the company is 'running lean' and this signals that it is valuable, and desirable, and can be sold off for more than it was bought. As do increased revenue, even if the reason for that increased revenue was one time tax credit infusions or selling IP.
