Netflix creators deserve respect; content should remain unaltered
November 5, 2019
Netflix announced that it will be testing an option on its mobile player that will allow users to speed up or slow down content they watch on their devices on Oct. 28.
While this is only a test of a new feature, it is still a feature that takes away from the creators’ work and creates unfair competition for television.
First off, I understand that slowing down a film or television show is helpful to some people. I know that reading subtitles during a foreign film can be hard and some people need extra time to process what they are watching. My problem lies in the ability to speed up a show or movie.
Since Netflix creates its own content, adding a speed up feature creates an unfair advantage to creatives who distribute to actual television channels or release their films in actual movie theaters. To watch television and movies in a traditional way, you can’t speed it up to get through it faster.
It would take you about six hours and 40 minutes to watch “Stranger Things” season three. If you were to use 1.5x speed, which is the fastest speed available, it would take you about four and a half hours. At normal speed, it would take you the same time to watch every single episode of “Big Mouth.”
Speeding up and slowing down content is not how the creators intended for their content to be shown. No one makes a television season or a movie to be played at 1.5x speed. Jud Apatow added to the conversation by tweeting, “Don’t f— with our timing. We give you nice things. Leave them as they were intended to be seen.”
I don’t see a huge call from users to speed up content. Netflix said that the users who have asked for the feature are “people looking to rewatch their favorite scene.” But if you were going to just skip to your favorite scene, why would you watch everything that has come before it?
Speeding up content on Netflix is a pointless and unneeded feature. The option ruins the content that creators are providing to the streaming service. It also creates an unfair advantage to watch more content than their television and movie theater counterparts. I do not support this change and nobody should if they want to continue receiving some of the best original programming out there.
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