“If you were to stick a pin in a timeline at the exact moment Silicon Valley declared war on Hollywood, it would likely land on Aug. 29, 1997. That’s the date Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph got together in Scotts Valley, about an hour south of San Francisco, and started a little DVD delivery company called Netflix,” the Hollywood Reporter reports.
“The rest is history: Within just a couple of decades, all the traditional pillars of the old entertainment order started to crumble. Linear television, cable TV, theatrical box office — nothing was left standing, at least not as tall as it once had. This we all know, all too well.”
“This time, though, the civil war with the north isn’t over digital platform windows or online content protection; this time, it’s mogul-to-mogul combat on a much grander battlefield, as both sides — super-rich techno libertarians versus not-quite-as-super-rich old guard Hollywood liberals — clash over what sort of government the country should be electing in November. Today, they’re fighting over nothing less than the presidency of the United States.”
As one studio executive succinctly said: “Fuck these Trump-loving techies.”
