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On consumption to creation, inputs and outputs
A look into different levels of consumption
Many areas of our lives can be divided into activities where we are consuming or creating. While not all metrics are valuable, being aware of this ratio in certain activities is worthwhile. Especially, if it impacts your health or short/long term goals.
Finding the right balance can be difficult. Globally, the average person consumes 7.5 hours of content per day. Companies often push and optimise for the appeal of consumption. In 2017, Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings said their biggest competition was sleep. Isn’t that insane?
In the words of an ex-Netflix employee:
When I was there we had two metrics we cared about: hours watched and retention. Whenever we introduced a new feature we carefully measured it’s impact on those two metrics. Ultimately, retention was the most important metric, but hours watched was a leading indicator for retention. I always had a bit of a moral dilemma working at Netflix because my goal was to get people to spend more time watching Netflix, which I didn’t really think was good for humanity. Either way, it was nice having very clear goals. Netflix was a great company to work for.
Netflix is an example of pure passive consumption.