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[Cristoforo Kanoy]

Explained then examines how meat production today has become grossly unsustainable and a major contributor to climate change. Factory farming, the filmmakers highlight, has also been linked to outbreaks of extremely virulent diseases like bird and swine flu that put huge populations at risk.

So, the show postulates, can future generations satisfy the human craving for meat another way? The episode then explores innovative ways entrepreneurs like Dr. Pat Brown (Impossible Foods) and Josh Tetrick (Just, Inc.) are fashioning meat out of plants or using cells and bioreactors.

But my biggest issue with this mini-doc is that while it acknowledges the insane amount of animals we breed, exploit, and kill every day for food, there is zero discussion of the inherent cruelty involved in factory farming.

I've been systematically informing the YouTube recommendation algorithm that I never want to watch any video posted by anyone with the word "angry" in their username. You can imagine how neckbeards have fallen to my sword of disinterest. You can imagine a little harder, and figure there's not a drill-bit sharp enough to bore through all that toxic content. Sunlight will never find these deserving motherfuckers.

Too much content is created out of a desire to be heard, instead of a desire to know and be known. Too much content is about other content, this very post of mine included (which is why I write free books to read online during my nights and weekends).

To be blunt, the internet's content, the perpetual doggo chasing its tail, has now deep-throated the thing and is molars-deep into its own ass, ignorant to the ashy flavor. The dominant moods on the most popular content platforms are psychosis, shrieking, and self-preservation.

And that's making the audience crazy. The gap between corporate-created content, which includes the blockbuster movie studio system and the prestige-television / Netflix alternative-streaming sphere, and the 'content-creator' / YouTuber industry is widening. To my surprise, the big guys, the Star Wars and Avengers shared universe worlds, are increasingly-inclusive in their content, crafting offerings for all types, not just white dudes in America. Elsewhere, the "content-creator" jackbags making $10,000 a month publishing Minecraft videos on YouTube are cruel nerve-balls without taste or talent. It isn't their fault, and I'd explain why, but I don't have three hours and enough construction paper.

This is mainly a staging device to present Neill Blomkamp's Oats Studios: the weird in-between of big-budget auteur content things. Blomkamp and his crew of professional weirdos have been publishing science fiction short films on YouTube since the start of the summer of 2017. The fourth film, Zygote was recently posted. They're ultra-slick and artfully thorough in design.

Who is Neill Blomkamp? He directed District 9 in 2009 under the supervision of Peter Jackson, netting an Academy Award best picture nomination. A remarkable achievement for not only a first-time feature film, but a science-fiction genre movie addressing South African apartheid.

All of Blomkamp's movies have a handheld filthiness to them that's more befitting for a YouTube / streaming environment and audience. He outpaced his ideal audience's gestation period. His design aesthetic for world-building, vehicles, and weapons are a harder, oilier military-future, another snuggly fit for the folks already familiar in streaming esports. His ideas are satirical, and heady, and a bit-too-obvious sci-fi, perfect for snacking over a 4G LTE network.

Consider Netflix's original films: Okja, War Machine, or I Don't Feel at Home in this World Anymore. Like Blomkamp's Hollywood feature films, they're blunt, obvious, and much too weird for theaters. But they're art and they're creative ideas that deserve to be witnessed, like Blomkamp's.

I recall seeing Blomkamp's Elysium in the theater years ago. I was sick as a dog with both mono and strep throat. Walking out, I joked aloud about the movie, "So, uh, was that movie about universal healthcare, or what?"

Blomkamp's preference for high-concept trash means his current manifestation as the Roger Corman of YouTube is well-earned. In an ideal world, he'd make a billion quick-hit ideas with workable special effects. If Zygote is any indication, we would be so lucky. Some of his might become features. Some might land on a streaming service, again, Netflix or a Netflix alternative (Hulu, Amazon, HBO).

Maybe others short films develop cult followings. Maybe Oat Studios will expand and become the incubator for artists? Just as we say in hushed tones that the likes of David Fincher got his first work directing music videos and James Gunn was a product of Troma studios, there might be a generation of visionaries produced from an institution like Blomkamp's.

We need increased professionalism in content produced for online platforms. It's a new, living medium, just as film went from moving pictures, to talkies, to its own craft. But the internet platform, and the content on it, needs to be watched carefully. It's too easy for artless psychopaths to scream into a camera about how the world is changing and it isn't what they're used to, and then mouthed fungus in the comments section all jerk each other off in agreed congratulations.

The Ghost Little blog publishes EVERY WEEKDAY. It's sometimes immediately relevant to the books' development process. Other times, it's only thematically-relevant. Thoughts and ideas influence the creative process in ways that you wouldn't initially anticipate. They're all worth detailing and discussing!

Netflix spearheaded a streaming revolution that changed the way we watch TV and films. As cable TV lost subscribers, Netflix gained them, putting it in a category with Facebook, Amazon and Google as one of the adored US tech stocks that led a historic bull market.

This rate of cash burn means the company has to repeatedly tap debt markets to pay for its content and make other debt repayments. It relies on the faith of investors to fuel the machine, studiously raising more junk-rated debt roughly every six months to help finance its splurge on content.

Netflix has taken on the vast majority of its $12bn in long-term debt in the past three years as it almost doubled its global subscriber base to 150m. In an environment of historic low interest rates, investors searching for yield have happily gobbled up Netflix bonds.

Many of the big legacy media companies initially surrendered their catalogues to Netflix in return for royalty payments. But the streaming service, anticipating that its rivals would fight back, began building its own catalogue before these shows disappeared from its platform.

Netflix first invaded US living rooms with its video streaming in 2007. But it would take another six years before it made a big splash with its own shows. The company paid $100m for two seasons of the political thriller House of Cards, which debuted in 2013 to widespread acclaim, putting Netflix on the map with both audiences and Hollywood.

On occasions the streaming service offered between 30 and 50 per cent higher prices than competitors such as HBO, Showtime and Starz, according to people familiar with these deals. The structure of them also stood out. While traditional networks typically paid on delivery of the show, Netflix sometimes stretched payments out over time, which was accepted because it was paying such a premium, according to people familiar with the deals.

In the meantime rival streaming services such as Hulu, Amazon and Apple have become more aggressive in acquiring content, giving producers options beyond Netflix. And bankers are beginning to question whether Netflix will need to change its funding model to continue winning projects because Apple, Amazon and Hulu pay on delivery.

Netflix declined to comment, but someone close to it says the company is experimenting with its promotional strategy and plans are likely to change with the imminent arrival of a new chief marketing officer, Jackie Lee-Joe, who joined from BBC Studios.

When it comes to content, however, there is little evidence that Netflix is tightening its purse strings. The week before the announcement that it had lost subscribers in the US, Netflix agreed to spend about $200m to make Red Notice, a Dwayne Johnson action film. A few weeks later, it signed a $200m deal with the Game of Thrones creators for future productions.

However, analysts and investors still believe firmly in the Netflix model. More than 80 per cent of stock analysts rate the company as a buy. Even after the loss of subscribers in the second quarter, Ben Swinburne, head of media research at Morgan Stanley, says Netflix is still on course for a record year of subscriber additions.

However, the economic prospects in these territories are weaker. Netflix subscriptions in India start at the equivalent of $3 a month, compared with its cheapest plan in the US which is three times that, resulting in thinner margins compared with its US business.

Netflix most recently raised debt in April to a rapturous reception, selling $2.2bn in 10-year notes in an auction that was three times oversubscribed. Based on its previous schedules, it would next be expected to tap investors in October.

Business environments are always changing, so businesses need to change too, or risk being left behind. On the face of it, this can seem terrifying and overwhelming. How do you respond to something that might happen? How do you implement change alongside keeping your day-to-day operations running? What about the cost of new technology or additional staff?

Of course, nobody knows what the future holds (the last couple of years have proved that!), but looking back, we can see that the companies that have survived and thrived have been those that have adapted, done their research, embraced new technologies and ways of working and listened to what their customers and staff want and need.

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