Streaming Layoffs: Netherflix Cuts 1,000 Jobs

Netherflix is laying off 1,000 workers, about 6 percent of its staff, and the layoffs landed in an inbox on a Wednesday.

The memo came from the two Co-Guildmasters, Ted Sorcerandos and Greg Petrifer. It says the crystal-ball streaming house is "on track" to meet its full-year forecast and will take "a more selective approach to allocating resources." That means they fired people. Mostly in product, technology, legal and the hiring-and-firing office, which I find rich. The office that hires folk is the office that gets to be fired. Somebody should put that on a tapestry.

It is the biggest round of cuts since 2022. The guild has about 16,000 full-time staff, so do the sums yourself. I did them on a tavern napkin and the napkin was sad.

"I got the scroll at breakfast," said Orla Brickwhistle, a contracts clerk of eleven years. "By lunch my access rune had gone grey. I never even finished the porridge." She asked me not to say what the porridge cost her. I won't. It was a lot.

Timing matters here. Third-quarter earnings are due October 20, six days off. A guildmaster who trims a thousand payrolls the week before the books open is not being selective. He is dressing the ledger for company. Netherflix's coin pile has also shed a fifth of its value this year, and the Co-Guildmasters will tell you the two facts are unrelated. They will tell you that with a straight face and a full-priced subscription.

Over in Hollowood, the big merger crowd has been at the same game since Skytrance Consolidated opened its doors and promptly started rightsizing. Netherflix did not raise its bid for the Warder Bros. vaults, so now it gets to lay off its own people instead of somebody else's. Frugal.

Here is what the layoffs mean in plain speech. A thousand households just lost a paycheck, and the guild sells you a show about a haunted dungeon that costs more than their severance. Plenty of those clerks and rune-wrights will land fine somewhere else. Plenty won't, not before winter. Ask for the severance in writing, ask for the health cover in writing, and don't sign anything before you've talked to somebody who isn't paid by the guild.

The Co-Guildmasters did not offer to take a cut. I checked. I even checked twice, which at my age is a workout.

Solidarity. And stretch your back. — Brakka