Netflix And Virtue Signalling

[Xerographica]

Well, in this case subscribers are already paying Netflix money. My argument is that subscribers should have the option to use their fees to signal the value of specific content. Then Netflix would know the actual value of its content. It could use this knowledge to more easily provide more valuable content. Once it did so, then its revenue would increase and it could compete more talent away from other organizations. It would be a virtuous cycle.

Consider this example from Deirdre McCloskey’s book “The Applied Theory Of Price”…



If the New Yorker (NY) allowed subscribers to use their fees to signal the value of specific articles… then the NY would know the actual value of its articles. With this knowledge it could do a far better job of supplying more valuable articles. Once the NY successfully supplied more valuable articles then it would earn more money and compete more talented writers away from other organizations. It would be a virtuous cycle.

It feels really ridiculous explaining this because this is pretty much how your grocery store works. Your grocery store is a market. Shoppers use their money to signal the value of specific products. As a result, the store knows the value of its products. It uses this knowledge to replace less valuable products with more valuable products. Of course all the other grocery stores do the same thing. Whichever grocery store does the best job of it will earn more money and compete more talent away from the other stores.

The idea that an organization is going to efficiently increase the value of its products without actually knowing the value of its products... is beyond absurd. Yet, this is exactly the idea that Netflix and the NY is based on. It's also exactly the idea that the Cato Institute and Adam Smith Institute are based on.

Therefore, it seems reasonable, albeit admittedly absurd, to conclude that nobody truly understands what markets are good for. This rule has one or two exceptions.

This is the point in history where we have markets but nobody truly understands what they are good for. Hopefully sooner rather than later we'll reach the point in history where everybody truly understands what markets are good for. The value of each and every product will be known and less valuable products will quickly be replaced with more valuable products.

netflix knows the value of its content by how many times a video is downloaded, then they use that information to decide what they should do, for example the sucess of things like Orange is the new black, and the continuation of arrested developement taught them that people will download original content, and have spent their investment dollars in that direction, and as their subscription rates are going up, producing more in profits it proves them right. they dont need to charge extra or make the customer do more. a smart business like netflix makes it as easy as possible to send them money and procure the product they want from netflix. they are not going to make it more complicated than necessary to get customers to give them money.

thanks to the metadata netflix knows exactly what to deliver to maximize their profits

Here you are "downloading" my thread. Please let me know exactly how much money you owe me. Then let me know exactly how much money Galloism owes me.

[Galloism]

netflix knows the value of its content by how many times a video is downloaded, then they use that information to decide what they should do, for example the sucess of things like Orange is the new black, and the continuation of arrested developement taught them that people will download original content, and have spent their investment dollars in that direction, and as their subscription rates are going up, producing more in profits it proves them right. they dont need to charge extra or make the customer do more. a smart business like netflix makes it as easy as possible to send them money and procure the product they want from netflix. they are not going to make it more complicated than necessary to get customers to give them money.

thanks to the metadata netflix knows exactly what to deliver to maximize their profits

Here you are "downloading" my thread. Please let me know exactly how much money you owe me. Then let me know exactly how much money Galloism owes me.

You don't own this thread. Max does.

And he sells it to us for the price of ads. Set up a forum you own, and you can charge for it.

[Ethel mermania]

netflix knows the value of its content by how many times a video is downloaded, then they use that information to decide what they should do, for example the sucess of things like Orange is the new black, and the continuation of arrested developement taught them that people will download original content, and have spent their investment dollars in that direction, and as their subscription rates are going up, producing more in profits it proves them right. they dont need to charge extra or make the customer do more. a smart business like netflix makes it as easy as possible to send them money and procure the product they want from netflix. they are not going to make it more complicated than necessary to get customers to give them money.

thanks to the metadata netflix knows exactly what to deliver to maximize their profits

Here you are "downloading" my thread. Please let me know exactly how much money you owe me. Then let me know exactly how much money Galloism owes me.

nothing i dont subscribe to you. why dont you ask max for your fee, he is the host i attach too. he generates his revenue from the ads i have to see while viewing and responding to your post

[Xerographica]

Time on the other hand is sacrifice. If a person spends 2 hours watching a movie, and they make 7.25/hr, they will have sacrificed 14.50 of personal time, an actual sacrifice mind you, more than your entire month's allocation for which you sacrifice $0.

Here you are spending your time consuming my thread. Please let me know exactly how much money you owe me.

Just because somebody spends their time doing something in no way, shape, or form tells us exactly how much they value that particular use of their time.

Just because you watch chick flicks in no way, shape, or form tells us how many more chick flicks you think Netflix should have.

Like I said in the OP.... I don't spend lots of time watching economics shows on Netflix. Therefore... I don't think Netflix needs more shows about economics? No. There just aren't many economics shows on Netflix for me to watch! From my perspective this scarcity of shows about economics is a problem!

Consuming the supply doesn't at all accurately communicate how you want the supply to be improved. In the Army I ate MREs. Therefore... I was perfectly happy with the supply of food? I didn't think that there was any room for improvement? Seriously guy?

[Xerographica]

Here you are "downloading" my thread. Please let me know exactly how much money you owe me. Then let me know exactly how much money Galloism owes me.

nothing i dont subscribe to you. why dont you ask max for your fee, he is the host i attach too. he generates his revenue from the ads i have to see while viewing and responding to your post

So you agree that the fact that you're consuming this thread doesn't inform us about how much you value it?

[Galloism]

Time on the other hand is sacrifice. If a person spends 2 hours watching a movie, and they make 7.25/hr, they will have sacrificed 14.50 of personal time, an actual sacrifice mind you, more than your entire month's allocation for which you sacrifice $0.

Here you are spending your time consuming my thread. Please let me know exactly how much money you owe me.

Given I'm the one sacrificing my time to teach you basic information about government and money, you should probably be paying me if anything.

Just because somebody spends their time doing something in no way, shape, or form tells us exactly how much they value that particular use of their time.

Now you are arguing people's actions are not valuable information, in contrary to the OP. I do wish you could keep your story straight. It's very confusing the way you keep contradicting yourself.

Just because you watch chick flicks in no way, shape, or form tells us how many more chick flicks you think Netflix should have.

So then we have to ask ourselves:

Which is more probative to what you like, that you watch hours of chick flicks, sacrificing alternate uses of that time and the money it represents, or that you make a weird "dollar vote" for which you personally sacrifice nothing?

Consuming the supply doesn't at all accurately communicate how you want the supply to be improved. In the Army I ate MREs. Therefore... I was perfectly happy with the supply of food? I didn't think that there was any room for improvement? Seriously guy?

You could have refused to eat it. That would be an action that would have garnered some kind of attention.

[Xerographica]

Now you are arguing people's actions are not valuable information, in contrary to the OP. I do wish you could keep your story straight. It's very confusing the way you keep contradicting yourself.

In the OP I argued that people's viewing habits are more trustworthy than their ratings.

Which is more probative to what you like, that you watch hours of chick flicks, sacrificing alternate uses of that time and the money it represents, or that you make a weird "dollar vote" for which you personally sacrifice nothing?

If I spend hours watching chick flicks, but spend my money on science shows, then it would behoove Netflix to pay attention to how I spend my money!

If Hulu gave subscribers the option to spend their fees on their favorite content, then Hulu would know the value of its content. It would use this knowledge to replace less valuable content with more valuable content. As it increased the value of its content... it would compete subscribers and talent away from Netflix.

[Galloism]

Now you are arguing people's actions are not valuable information, in contrary to the OP. I do wish you could keep your story straight. It's very confusing the way you keep contradicting yourself.

In the OP I argued that people's viewing habits are more trustworthy than their ratings.

Given your system of allocating fees is just a glorified ratings system (essentially, a vote for what you find the BEST but allowing you to split that among best(s)), you're arguing that what people watch should be more probative than your system.

Which is more probative to what you like, that you watch hours of chick flicks, sacrificing alternate uses of that time and the money it represents, or that you make a weird "dollar vote" for which you personally sacrifice nothing?

If I spend hours watching chick flicks, but spend my money on science shows, then it would behoove Netflix to pay attention to how I spend my money!

If Hulu gave subscribers the option to spend their fees on their favorite content, then Hulu would know the value of its content. It would use this knowledge to replace less valuable content with more valuable content. As it increased the value of its content... it would compete subscribers and talent away from Netflix.

Why? I thought actions were louder than words?

Given there's no sacrifice to your allocation, and you've been repeating ad nauseum that

Making a sacrifice is how we prove and communicate importance. And knowing the importance of things is necessary because society's resources are limited.

Given allocating your $10 your sacrifice nothing, while watching something you sacrifice time, and time = money, why should I take your actual zero sacrifice allocation and take is as more important than your actual sacrifice of money in the form of time?

Why do you have so much trouble coming up with a consistent story?

[Grave_n_idle]

For the one or two of you that don't have Netflix, it recently replaced its 5 star rating system with a thumbs up/down rating system. Part of the reason is because there was some disparity between what people regularly watched and what they highly rated.

That's totally idiotic.

"Hero" is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It encompasses all the best virtues of film-making, and it's one of the movies I happily gave 5 stars on the Netflix rating system.

But I never watch it on Netflix.

Pertly because of their cycling of content, which means things want to watch are very rarely actually on the thing... but more because I own it on (two different versions of) DVD, and always watch it on DVD.

(I do this so I can access other things about the movie, so I don't have to share bandwidth, so I don't get caught spooling, etc. etc.

There most certainly IS a disparity between what I watch on Netflix and what I rate most highly. It's not accidental. Or misleading.

[Grave_n_idle]

In the OP I argued that people's viewing habits are more trustworthy than their ratings.

You did. You were wrong.

[Trotskylvania]

I'm pretty sure that Netflix got rid of the 5 star rating system for the same reason Youtube did: the average end user apparently cannot be trusted with the nuance of a 5 point rating scale.

Very few users actually used the 5 point scale as intended. Rather than expressing degree of like or dislike, or giving an honest grading of content, people tended to 5 star things they liked at the moment, and 1 star things they did not like. To an overwhelming degree. Moving to a thumps up/thumbs down system simply reflects actual user rating habits, because unless the majority of people use the 5 star rating system as intended, it's pretty much a useless marker.

[Ethel mermania]

nothing i dont subscribe to you. why dont you ask max for your fee, he is the host i attach too. he generates his revenue from the ads i have to see while viewing and responding to your post

So you agree that the fact that you're consuming this thread doesn't inform us about how much you value it?

Enough to put up with the ads. If I had to make a conscious decision to pay to enter a particular thread, I would have passed.

[Jello Biafra]

If you spent 1 token on a chick flick, then you'd have one less token to spend on a science show. As a result you'd have to decide whether you want Netflix to have more chick flicks or science shows.

But with thumbs up... you can give both the chick flick and the science show a thumbs up. Netflix would have no idea which you want more... chick flicks or science shows.

You don't spend a thumbs up. But you would spend your token. This is why "dollar voting" really wouldn't be mere words.

You spend time searching for chick flicks and science shows to give 'thumbs up' to.

[Xerographica]

Given allocating your $10 your sacrifice nothing, while watching something you sacrifice time, and time = money, why should I take your actual zero sacrifice allocation and take is as more important than your actual sacrifice of money in the form of time?

Why do you have so much trouble coming up with a consistent story?

Here are 10 movies/shows that I've enjoyed on Netflix...

1. Amelie
2. Black Mirror
3. Castaway on the Moon
4. Rake
5. Shaolin Soccer
6. Sidewalls
7. Snatch
8. Spaced
9. The League
10 The Man From Earth

From your perspective... either the correct order (relative importance) of this content doesn't matter... or my viewing history will determine the correct order. From my perspective, the correct order (relative importance) can only be determined by how I spend my money.

So let's say that I divide my $10 monthly fee among this content...

1. The Man From Earth: $4.00
2. Amelie: $1.50
3. Rake: $1.25
4. Spaced: $1.00
5. The League: $0.75
6. Shaolin Soccer: $0.50
7. Black Mirror: $0.25
8. Castaway on the Moon: $0.25
9. Sidewalls: $0.25
10. Snatch: $0.25

Now you can see the correct order (relative importance) of the content. You can see the relative intensity of my preference for each specific content. You can see my relative demand for this content.

For some reason you either don't think it's necessary to know my demand for this content... or you think that my viewing habits are adequate at revealing my demand for this content.

Consider this passage...

Advertising is, among other things, a method of providing potential buyers with knowledge of the identity of sellers. It is clearly an immensely powerful instrument for the elimination of ignorance - comparable in force to the use of the book instead of the oral discourse to communicate knowledge. A small $5 advertisement in a metropolitan newspaper reaches (in the sense of being read) perhaps 25,000 readers, or fifty readers per penny, and, even if only a tiny fraction are potential buyers (or sellers), the economy they achieve in search, as compared with uninstructed solicitation, may be overwhelming. - George Stigler, The Economics of Information

By dividing my $10 dollars among my favorite content, I'm prioritizing which ignorance I want to eliminate. Since I was willing to spend the most money on The Man From Earth then clearly I'm most concerned with eliminating people's ignorance of this movie.

If every Netflix subscriber divided their fees among their favorite content, then we'd all help to eliminate the most harmful ignorance. That's what the Invisible Hand (IH) does. It helps to ensure that we don't overlook the most valuable things.

Right now the IH does not determine the order (relative importance) of Netflix's content. As a result, it's a given that we all overlook really valuable content. Because... the only way to avoid overlooking the most valuable content is if each and every one of us prioritizes how we spend our limited fees on our favorite content. Well duh. In order to avoid overlooking the most valuable content... we actually have to know the value of the content!!! Ugh. This should be a no-brainer. I really shouldn't have to point out something so painfully obvious.

You think that there isn't any sacrifice involved in dividing $10 dollars among all your favorite content. This proves that you've never actually tried to divide $10 dollars among all your favorite content. First divide $10 dollars among all your favorite content.... share the results with all of us... and then let us know whether you had to make any sacrifices.

[Galloism]

Given allocating your $10 your sacrifice nothing, while watching something you sacrifice time, and time = money, why should I take your actual zero sacrifice allocation and take is as more important than your actual sacrifice of money in the form of time?

Why do you have so much trouble coming up with a consistent story?

Here are 10 movies/shows that I've enjoyed on Netflix...

1. Amelie
2. Black Mirror
3. Castaway on the Moon
4. Rake
5. Shaolin Soccer
6. Sidewalls
7. Snatch
8. Spaced
9. The League
10 The Man From Earth

From your perspective... either the correct order (relative importance) of this content doesn't matter... or my viewing history will determine the correct order. From my perspective, the correct order (relative importance) can only be determined by how I spend my money.

So let's say that I divide my $10 monthly fee among this content...

1. The Man From Earth: $4.00
2. Amelie: $1.50
3. Rake: $1.25
4. Spaced: $1.00
5. The League: $0.75
6. Shaolin Soccer: $0.50
7. Black Mirror: $0.25
8. Castaway on the Moon: $0.25
9. Sidewalls: $0.25
10. Snatch: $0.25

Now you can see the correct order (relative importance) of the content. You can see the relative intensity of my preference for each specific content. You can see my relative demand for this content.

For some reason you either don't think it's necessary to know my demand for this content... or you think that my viewing habits are adequate at revealing my demand for this content.

Given this random allocation requires no personal sacrifice, and watching something does require personal sacrifice, why should I take your lack of sacrifice as more probative than sacrifice?

Keep in mind, someone told me this:

Making a sacrifice is how we prove and communicate importance. And knowing the importance of things is necessary because society's resources are limited.

Maybe his statement was full of shit and worth ignoring. What do you think?


Incidentally:

You think that there isn't any sacrifice involved in dividing $10 dollars among all your favorite content. This proves that you've never actually tried to divide $10 dollars among all your favorite content. First divide $10 dollars among all your favorite content.... share the results with all of us... and then let us know whether you had to make any sacrifices.

$10 on Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States. Boom, done.

[Chestaan]

Based on your ideal system, money is just a rating anyway. They are functionally identical.

Try again. Are people using "dollar votes" more accurate or what people actually do?

If I'm starving then, as far as food is concerned, beggars can't be choosers. I'll eat some grubs to stay alive. But if I'm going to spend my money on food, then obviously I'm going to want to spend my money on some food that closely matches my preferences (ie fish tacos).

grubs < fish tacos

Everybody wants to be as happy as a kid in a candy store. This is true whether we're talking about NationStates or Netflix. But in order for there to be a wide variety of things that closely match our preferences, we gotta use our money to communicate what our specific preferences are.

If I was starving then maybe I might be willing to eat candy corn. But even if I wasn't starving I'd be happy to spend my money on sesame seed candy. My willingness to pay for sesame seed candy informs producers that it closely matches my preferences.

If we think something is good, and we want more of it, then we gotta spend our money on it. This is just as true for forum threads and Netflix shows as it is for food. Because producers really aren't mind-readers. They can't "divine" how much we love something. They can only know what's in our hearts when we inform them by our willingness to pay.

However, grubs will make a starving man happier than fish tacos will make you. Hence, it is more efficient to give a starving man a grub than you a fish taco, regardless of how much money you can pay for the fish tacos.

[Iwassoclose]

This is actually a great method of rating movies. You either like or not. I dislike the five star system as that is as unreliable as it gets.

[Xerographica]

So you agree that the fact that you're consuming this thread doesn't inform us about how much you value it?

Enough to put up with the ads. If I had to make a conscious decision to pay to enter a particular thread, I would have passed.

I'm not arguing for paywalls. People are already subscribing to Netflix. I'm arguing that people be given the option to spend their fees on their favorite content. But they'd still be able to watch all the content.

1. Watch some content
2. Decide how many fees it was worth
3. Spend that amount of fees on the content

Say you want to read some book on Amazon. First you buy it and then you read it. Of course you hope that the amount of enjoyment you get from the book (valuation) will be greater than the amount you spent on it (payment)...

valuation > payment

If so then...

valuation - payment = consumer surplus

But if...

valuation < payment

Then...

payment - valuation = consumer shortage

The larger the consumer shortage, the greater your buyer's remorse.

But imagine if Amazon Kindle Unlimited (AKU) gave subscribers the option to spend their fees on their favorite books. First you'd read a book and then you'd spend your fees on it. The amount of fees that you spent on the book would accurately reflect your valuation of the book. There wouldn't be any consumer surplus... or shortage... or remorse. You'd simply use your fees to accurately signal your valuation of the book. Every subscriber would use their fees to accurately signal their valuation of the books. We'd all know the actual value of the books and we wouldn't overlook the most valuable books.

There's an inherent conflict between these two things...

A. spending money to get
B. spending money to communicate

For oranges it's easy to think that you spend your money to get them. But if you donate your money to the Red Cross... you're probably not spending your money to get some disaster relief. Instead, you're spending your money to communicate your valuation of disaster relief.

But in all cases, when you spend your money on anything you're transmitting information about the intensity of your preference for whatever it is that you're spending your money on. And when it comes to communication... the general concern is accuracy. How correct is the information that you transmitted?

[Xerographica]

$10 on Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States. Boom, done.

I've never even heard of this. I looked it up and will try and watch it.

Is this the only show that you value on Netflix? If so, then yeah, in your case, no sacrifice was involved. But it would be strange to imagine that you're paying $10 dollars a month to only watch one show.

[Galloism]

$10 on Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States. Boom, done.

I've never even heard of this. I looked it up and will try and watch it.

Is this the only show that you value on Netflix? If so, then yeah, in your case, no sacrifice was involved. But it would be strange to imagine that you're paying $10 dollars a month to only watch one show.

No, because it makes no difference to ME how the $10 is allocated, and doesn't effect in any measure or capacity what I can and can't watch, or what I can and can't have, or what I can and can't buy, so it's an irrelevant distraction, and since it involves literally no sacrfice, I can't be bothered to care overmuch WHAT you put the $10 on.

So it's on Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States because that's what I'm watching this week.

It might be something different next week. Or I might forget and it and it be Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States forever, because it literally affects me in no tangible way how it's allocated, so it's most likely I'll forget to do it at all. It involves no sacrifice however it's allocated.

[Ethel mermania]

This is actually a great method of rating movies. You either like or not. I dislike the five star system as that is as unreliable as it gets.

sometimes simpler is better

[A Humanist Prognostication]

I'm pretty sure that Netflix got rid of the 5 star rating system for the same reason Youtube did: the average end user apparently cannot be trusted with the nuance of a 5 point rating scale.

Very few users actually used the 5 point scale as intended. Rather than expressing degree of like or dislike, or giving an honest grading of content, people tended to 5 star things they liked at the moment, and 1 star things they did not like. To an overwhelming degree. Moving to a thumps up/thumbs down system simply reflects actual user rating habits, because unless the majority of people use the 5 star rating system as intended, it's pretty much a useless marker.

And even if the end user was that sophisticated, since each unique piece of media is (very probably) only ever rated once, the reliability of a 5-point rating cannot really be trusted anyway. This is why many Likert-scale type surveys will run the same question (or very nearly the same question) past the respondent several times over the full course of the questionnaire.

Hulu will run the same media item though your "recommendation" list more than once, effectively asking you to rate it multiple times. Surprisingly sophisticated, considering Hulu is otherwise broken and backwards junk for insisting on using Flash.

[Xerographica]

I've never even heard of this. I looked it up and will try and watch it.

Is this the only show that you value on Netflix? If so, then yeah, in your case, no sacrifice was involved. But it would be strange to imagine that you're paying $10 dollars a month to only watch one show.

No, because it makes no difference to ME how the $10 is allocated, and doesn't effect in any measure or capacity what I can and can't watch, or what I can and can't have, or what I can and can't buy, so it's an irrelevant distraction, and since it involves literally no sacrfice, I can't be bothered to care overmuch WHAT you put the $10 on.

So it's on Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States because that's what I'm watching this week.

It might be something different next week. Or I might forget and it and it be Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States forever, because it literally affects me in no tangible way how it's allocated, so it's most likely I'll forget to do it at all.

How people spent their fees would shape the supply. If people spent 99% of their fees on chick flicks... then Netflix would get the memo loud and clear and adjust the supply accordingly.

Admittedly though, because Netflix has so many subscribers, how you spent your own fees would be a drop in the bucket. But this is even more true when you shop at the grocery store. But, because everybody spends their limited money on the groceries that most closely match their preferences, the supply closely matches everybody's preferences.

Your premise for Netflix is that the supply closely matches everybody's preferences... despite the fact that nobody spends their limited money on the content that most closely matches their preferences.

Your premise is wrong. If shoppers don't prioritize how they spend their limited money, then there's just no way that the supply will closely match their preferences. What I'm telling you is the truth.

The market works because shoppers prioritize. Prioritizing is the only way to ensure that society's limited resources are put to more, rather than less, valuable uses.

Will I watch Charmed on Netflix? Sure. But is it something that I'd spend my money on? No.

Creating content that consumers are not willing to pay for shrinks the pool of resources available for the creation of content that consumers are willing to pay for.

If Netflix subscribers could spend their fees on their favorite content, then it's a given that some content would receive more money than other content. The creators of the more valuable content would be able to compete limited resources (ie talent) away from the creators of the less valuable content. As a result, the supply of content would be more valuable. But of course our money would be still be limited so we'd still have to prioritize. Doing so would result in an even more valuable supply. It would be a virtuous cycle of value creation.

You believe that there can be a virtuous cycle of value creation without consumers prioritizing how they spend their limited money. What you believe is really wrong.

Believing in the tooth fairy is really wrong. But I could care less if you want to believe this. Your wrong belief wouldn't adversely affect me. But the same really isn't true about believing that prioritizing isn't necessary to have a virtuous cycle of value creation. In this case your wrong belief really does adversely affect me. It adversely affects all of us. It robs us all of content that's more valuable than we can imagine. So please eliminate your wrong belief.

[Jello Biafra]

By dividing my $10 dollars among my favorite content, I'm prioritizing which ignorance I want to eliminate. Since I was willing to spend the most money on The Man From Earth then clearly I'm most concerned with eliminating people's ignorance of this movie.

If every Netflix subscriber divided their fees among their favorite content, then we'd all help to eliminate the most harmful ignorance. That's what the Invisible Hand (IH) does. It helps to ensure that we don't overlook the most valuable things.

Right now the IH does not determine the order (relative importance) of Netflix's content. As a result, it's a given that we all overlook really valuable content. Because... the only way to avoid overlooking the most valuable content is if each and every one of us prioritizes how we spend our limited fees on our favorite content. Well duh. In order to avoid overlooking the most valuable content... we actually have to know the value of the content!!! Ugh. This should be a no-brainer. I really shouldn't have to point out something so painfully obvious.

What if my value of a particular piece of content is $11?

[Xerographica]

By dividing my $10 dollars among my favorite content, I'm prioritizing which ignorance I want to eliminate. Since I was willing to spend the most money on The Man From Earth then clearly I'm most concerned with eliminating people's ignorance of this movie.

If every Netflix subscriber divided their fees among their favorite content, then we'd all help to eliminate the most harmful ignorance. That's what the Invisible Hand (IH) does. It helps to ensure that we don't overlook the most valuable things.

Right now the IH does not determine the order (relative importance) of Netflix's content. As a result, it's a given that we all overlook really valuable content. Because... the only way to avoid overlooking the most valuable content is if each and every one of us prioritizes how we spend our limited fees on our favorite content. Well duh. In order to avoid overlooking the most valuable content... we actually have to know the value of the content!!! Ugh. This should be a no-brainer. I really shouldn't have to point out something so painfully obvious.

What if my value of a particular piece of content is $11?

Well... what I'm advocating is essentially crowdfunded advertising. The more valuable some content is, the more people who would watch it. With this in mind I'm sure that plenty of people would be more than happy to pay more than their fair share in order to help promote their favorite content.

Take take this forum for example. The threads are sorted chronologically. Of course it's useful to be able to see which threads have the latest replies. But it would be incredibly useful to be able to also see which threads are the most valuable.

Let's say that we all paid $1/month but we could choose which threads we spent our money on. There would be one page on this forum where you could see all the most valuable threads. You could filter the list to see the most valuable threads that had been created in the past week, month, year or all time.

People are going to want to read the most valuable threads. With this in mind, if there's a thread that you would want more people to read, then you'd clearly have an incentive to spend more than your fair share on that thread. The more money that was spent on that thread, the higher it would be on the list, and the more people who would read it.

We'd prioritize how we spent our limited money in order to help each other prioritize how we spent our limited time.