Thoughtful piece on the attention economy framing. The gen-Z rewatching hypothesis is underappreciated--Suits blowing up on Netflix felt like an anomaly to most people, but it's actually revealing a cohort effect that's about to cliff. The interesting tension is between your prediction on creator-funded films and the capital intensity problem. A $200K Patreon-funded indie can work, but can a creator rally $15M for something theatrically viable? The closest analog might be how Chamath took SPACs direct-to-retail, except film has way worse unit economics than software. I'm watching wether the barbell thesis holds or if we get a third equilibrium: micro-budget lean-forward content that's discovered algorithmically but consumed in lean-back sessions. TikTok's trying to thread this needle with their longer-form pushbut it's messy.
Thoughtful piece on the attention economy framing. The gen-Z rewatching hypothesis is underappreciated--Suits blowing up on Netflix felt like an anomaly to most people, but it's actually revealing a cohort effect that's about to cliff. The interesting tension is between your prediction on creator-funded films and the capital intensity problem. A $200K Patreon-funded indie can work, but can a creator rally $15M for something theatrically viable? The closest analog might be how Chamath took SPACs direct-to-retail, except film has way worse unit economics than software. I'm watching wether the barbell thesis holds or if we get a third equilibrium: micro-budget lean-forward content that's discovered algorithmically but consumed in lean-back sessions. TikTok's trying to thread this needle with their longer-form pushbut it's messy.