The 2023 Writers’ Strike: 18 Years In The Making

As of writing the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike has been going on for over 3 months. 3 months and 3 weeks which is pretty long. It’s already longer than the 2007 and 1981 WGA strikes although not as long as the 1988 and 1960 WGA strikes both of which lasted approximately 150 days.

But it’s possible that this strike will soon surpass even those. As reported by deadline

Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street since the WGA went on strike May 2, Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to “break the WGA,” as one studio exec blatantly put it.

To do so, the studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”

The strike started on May 2nd. If it lasts until October that would make it a 153 day long strike. The 1988 WGA strike was 153 days and that is the longest WGA strike I know about. Coincidence? I think not. It looks like the entertainment industry is using the same tactics they’ve used before to crush the strike.

But it’s that last line, “A cruel but necessary evil.” which got me thinking. Is it cruel? Definitely. Is it necessary? That’s a much more difficult question. But if you really think about it, it is necessary in a way. In a cruel way. Because the truth is that this strike didn’t just randomly start on May 2nd. It didn’t even start with the arrival of ChatGPT in November of last year. No, it started 18 years ago.

2005

We start our journey in 2005. Even before the previous WGA strike, oddly enough.

These were dark times. The idea of ‘streaming’, of having hundreds or even thousands of movies just a click away was a distant fantasy. Instead in order to watch a movie you would have to obtain a physical copy of it. Usually you’d go to the store (or some movie rental service), pick something you like, and bring it home. Or I guess you could use your TV’s recording functionality to record a movie or TV show.

But what if they didn’t have anything you were interested in? Then you could go to mail order services. You’d have to select a DVD and have it mailed to you. This is how Netflix started.

But in 2005 we also had the internet. We also had torrents. And we had The Pirate Bay. You could go there and in only a few clicks you could download any movie you could think of. So driving to the store? Selecting a DVD to be mailed to you? Why would anyone do that if you could just go to a website and download one of thousands of movies for free? The entertainment industry had a massive piracy problem.

So who does the entertainment industry call for help in their moment of desperation? Steve Jobs. I bet you thought I’d say Netflix. No, Netflix didn’t enter streaming until later. And Steve Jobs had beaten piracy before, in the music industry with iTunes. See, the music industry, just like the TV and movie industry, also had a major piracy problem. Apple forced music companies to unbundle their music and make them all available for 99 cents. This significantly reduced piracy. And in 2005 Steve Jobs boldly proclaimed:

We’re doing for video what we’ve done for music — we’re making it easy and affordable to purchase and download [videos], play [them] on your computer, and take [them] with you on your iPod

So in 2005 with the introduction of iTunes 6 Steve Jobs announced that you could download popular TV shows for $1.99 the day after they aired on TV. This was pretty big. But Apple wasn’t a big company at the time. We were still over a year away from ‘a widescreen iPod with touch controls’.

And this was still a digital download. It wasn’t as convenient as streaming. So fast forward to 2006 and the first streaming competitor appeared: not Netflix, but Amazon Unbox, later renamed to Amazon Prime Video. And after that another player appeared: Hulu.

Now you may have never heard of Hulu before. I’m not exactly sure why it didn’t get as popular as Netflix. It might have to do with the fact that Hulu was more niche. It was a streaming company created by various TV companies and it provided access to their TV shows. Netflix, on the other hand, had everything and expanded much more aggressively. I guess all those remotes with a ‘Netflix’ button paid off then.

I used Hulu back in the day, I believe to watch Agents of Shield. Most of the episodes were free with ads but if you wanted to watch the latest episode you’d have to pay for it. It was a good service. Too bad Netflix ate their lunch.

And speaking of Netflix they also released their streaming service the same year as Hulu.

2011

You know in the early days of Netflix they were almost acquired by Amazon for 14–16 million dollars. The offer was almost approved, but thankfully cooler heads prevailed and shot it down.

Good thing they did because Netflix, with the arrival of streaming, had become way bigger than what anyone could have imagined. Now instead of having to drive to the store, wait for a DVD to be shipped to you, or downloading a torrent people could sit back and have the show streamed to their TV. This brought about a golden age. One where streaming companies were rolling in cash.

So what do they do with this cash? Grow bigger of course. And they did this by hiring writers and creating original content. The first big series to come out of this was probably House Of Cards. Yes, that House Of Cards.

And Netflix just kept on cranking out new content: Stranger Things, The Crown, Umbrella Academy, The Witcher, the list goes on and on.

And this trend wasn’t exclusive to Netflix. Soon Amazon was also producing original content with shows like Betas, Alpha House, Transparent, and The Man In The High Castle. I was thinking of watching that last one. It takes place in an alternate universe where the Axis powers won World War 2.

And then other companies started doing it too. Apple TV with Ted Lasso, Mythic Quest, For All Mankind, and Tetris. Then we had Disney Plus with a bunch of Marvel shows. Even companies like HBO and NBC (through Peacock) got involved in adding original programming only for streaming. It seemed like the gravy train would never end. Until it did.

2017

Now it’s important to note that streaming is not a license to print money. Who could forget YouTube’s efforts to get into the streaming wars? And what about Quibi, the company that catered to the TikTok generation with 10 minute clips and (optional) vertical video?

But even with the successful streaming sites the warning signs were there. There were now so many subscriptions and content became fragmented. It wasn’t as simple as subscribing to Netflix and having everything. You now needed multiple subscriptions. This led to subscription fatigue and this made it harder for any one service to gain traction. The situation is now so bad that there are sites whose sole purpose is to tell you which streaming service has a particular show or movie.

And if this wasn’t bad enough subscription prices began to increase. Netflix has doubled in price for its premium tier with other tiers also receiving slight price bumps. Amazon Prime increased from $79 to $139 a year. Hulu also experienced price hikes as did Disney Plus. Combined with rising prices everywhere and the cracking down on password sharing people began to wonder if all these subscriptions were really worth it.

Netflix’s revenue in the last year has begun to taper off from the explosive growth it had since the dawn of streaming. Disney Plus has lost Disney millions of dollars.

There are now so many streaming shows that new content is not receiving the attention it once was. For example Kevin Feige (MCU daddy) has stated that Marvel will focus on fewer shows. People don’t want to get invested in a show only for it to be killed off with an unresolved cliffhanger.

And that brings us to today. The industry hired too aggressively during the golden age of streaming. So when the market became saturated and profits began to dry up the metaphorical noose started to tighten.

Warren Buffet has a saying, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” During the golden age of streaming there was a high tide which resulted in companies making tons of original content. And as a result companies have forgotten how just a few years ago the industry had been plagued by another problem: piracy.

Piracy was only sealed away when the various tech companies created a service that was more convenient than piracy. But now that the landscape has been fragmented again piracy is making a resurgence.

Unfortunately as is the case in all industries the people who felt the consequences the hardest are the ones that are seen as being the most replaceable. And that means writers. Do you think it’s an accident that this strike is happening right when the industry is contracting? I think not.

You know there was also another strike in 2007. When streaming was in its infancy, when piracy ran rampant. And it looks like piracy might be a threat once again. Thankfully in 2007 streaming propelled the industry forward. But in 2023 I’m not so sure.

What got me started thinking about this is this WAN show.

Linus argues that the writers may not have as much leverage as they once had. He argues that many companies are opting to never release their work in favour of a tax write-off and that video games are being seen as a better alternative than movies and TV.

It definitely makes sense. People always talk about how many hours of entertainment you can get per dollar in a video game. Now we have indie games that cost only a few dollars and give hours of entertainment and AAA games that can give you hundreds of hours of entertainment it’s hard to justify subscribing to tons of subscription services.

And to top it all off gaming companies are making their own subscription services. For not that much more than what the movie/TV streaming services are charging you can get full games. I don’t care how good Barbenheimer are, are they better than Starfield?

I don’t know how this can be resolved. Because all these streaming services are not going to randomly shut down. Because we are in a tragedy of the commons situation. Or a Nash Equilibrium, a situation where no player can improve their position. Because if Disney Plus closed down tomorrow it would be good for the entire industry… except Disney which is why they won’t do it. And I don’t see any way forward from this.

There may not be a happy ending to this story. The strike may go on to October and become the longest WGA strike in history. Then they may be forced to accept some compromise and a lot of writers will leave. The industry will contract. And the golden age of streaming will be over.

If you liked this post and would like to stay updated with my future articles consider using my RSS app Stratum on iOS and Android. Also check out my language learning app Litany (iOS, Android) and my programming idle game ‘Pretentious’ (iOS, Android) based on my post on the GPL.