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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

I actually feel bad for Netflix here. They have nothing at all to do with this (as the article rightly points out) but the photographer is blaming them anyway, and I'm sure all of their friends are too.

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Netflix is in a good position to tell its production companies "You pay for the people who do work for you, or we don't pay you."

There are unions like SAG and SMA precisely because this kind of stuff happened all the time in Hollywood (along with a ton of other abuses). It happened because the workers banded together to say, "No, you won't get to work with any of us if you don't treat all of us fairly". If Netflix doesn't want to find itself in the same situation, it's precisely where they need to address their complaints.

They could say that, but then the deals would go to the other studios who don't have that rule. Any rule that adds cost to a production needs to come from a union agreement that applies to everyone, otherwise the studio that implements the rule will lose all their deals. This is why unions are so important. To force changes that cost money and benefit workers, because no studio will do that on their own for fear of losing out deals to the studios that don't have that rule.

I actually don’t, with the caveat that perhaps this is standard business practice for photographers. For example Apple gets the stock of one of their suppliers are using inhuman labor conditions and I don’t see the big difference.

Clearly Netflix can say in the contract which business practices they are ok with.

If a Netflix subcontractor didn’t pay their actors, writers, etc, they would catch a well deserved deluge of criticism. Of course it wouldn’t happen because those workers are organized to prevent these abuses.

They aren't really subcontractors of Netflix. They're a separate company selling a product to Netflix (a complete TV show).

If Netflix buys a laptop from Apple and Apple does something wrong, you don't blame Netflix for it, you blame Apple.

I don’t think this is cut and dry, and instead depends on the nature of the relationship. To buy a laptop, Netflix didn’t have board meetings, deep contract negotiations involving the executives of both businesses, or an ongoing relationship.

The laptop is effectively a commodity, and any injustice Apple commits is amortized over many million laptop owners who tacitly but minorly endorsed that injustice. Netflix buying a show feels like a much more intimate relationship where much more of the responsibility lies with Netflix as the only buyer of the product.

Netflix isn't the only buyer though. They make the show and sell it to whichever studio compensates them the best. And then sometimes sell it to a different studio in a different country.

Show purchases don't go past the board. They don't even always go past the CEO.

It's really more akin to buying enterprise software. So sure, change the metaphor to Oracle database. You don't complain about Oracle's customers where Oracle does something bad.

You could also compare it to buying something from a terrorist, or hiring an assassin.

When it's something we care about, we definitely blame the customers too.

That's a bad metaphor, though, it's more like if Netflix hired Apple to make a special type of Laptop that only Netflix will sell, and the laptop will be marketed as "The Netflix Laptop".

You're right it's a bad metaphor. It's more like enterprise software. So change "laptop" to Salesforce or Oracle.

When your major enterprise outsources development to a dirt cheap company, who then basically hires in 3rd world countries at slave labor prices, don't you still blame the major enterprise? I know I do.

Only to some degree, if Netflix is in some sort of executive production role on this project, then they likely have the pull to squash these kinds of requests.

Honestly, Netflix should ding this company for embarrassing them.

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