Ask people what they want from life and their answers rarely match their behaviour. We all say that we would like to eat better, read more and spend less time on our phones. But entire industries are built to exploit our impulse for mindless scrolling and feed us food or information that we don’t really want. Today, streaming platforms are no different – and in chasing our behaviours, they risk forgetting what audiences actually value.

Netflix announced an investment in short-form video this month that is designed to compete with YouTube. Like all bad audience research, the plan mistakes consumption for satisfaction. Just because audiences are increasingly spending more time watching short videos does not mean that they want their subscription service to do the same. As history has shown us through the rise and fall of myriad media companies, success rarely comes from chasing every trend. The strongest brands create spaces where creativity finds a home.

Netflix’s huge global success came from offering audiences and producers an alternative to cinema and television. It gave filmmakers the time and space to make ambitious work that was shunned by traditional studios for being long and/or expensive. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman proved Hollywood wrong, as audiences stuck it out through three and a half hours of gangster clichés. Viewed by more than 26 million households in its first seven days, it proved that attention spans were not collapsing.
 
Yet what media executives have found impossible to ignore is the countless hours of short-form content that younger audiences are consuming – looking enviously at the extraordinary numbers that it can generate. Their panic-spends in the pursuit of this attention, clicks and traffic is all in a seemingly misguided belief that this could convert to subscriptions and customer loyalty.
 
Documentary filmmaker Evan Williams has described Netflix’s move as “the race to the bottom”. His concern isn’t that short-form video exists but that “every platform begins to resemble every other”. If Netflix becomes another endless stream of vapid, rapid clips, it erodes the very proposition that made it successful: a place where viewers can settle in for something memorable. 
 
There is a growing recognition that doomscrolling often leaves people feeling drained and, in many cases, depressed. While it might be highly consumable, it certainly isn’t striking or enjoyable. “It’s like junk food,” says Williams. “It satisfies an immediate craving but leaves little behind. People are not stupid. They want material, they want to learn.” The great irony here being that the overwhelming amount of short content has actually increased the desire for something more substantial – book sales are strong, documentaries are dominating public discourse and podcast listenership is still growing.   
 
Netflix seems to be ignoring its competitive advantage for a spike in short-term numbers. But why would consumers come to Netflix for short-form videos when they can stay on Tiktok, Instagram or YouTube? If anything, the platform’s existing subscriber base is likely to want a long-form palette cleanser from all the clips they encounter throughout the day. It’s what attracted talents such as Scorsese in the first place; a lesson Netflix might’ve forgotten. If Netflix is to thrive into the future, it will not be through replicating what’s already filling phones around the world – but through investing in immersive storytelling that people want to spend time exploring. 
 
Tom Webb is Monocle’s deputy head of radio. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
 
Further reading:
– The UK’s under-16 social-media ban won’t make Big Tech safer

– Australia wants tech giants to fund journalism – but is it too little, too late?

– The summer of cinema is urging us to break the spell of our screens

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