📈 The churn treadmill breaks standalone streaming subscriptions
Chamath's churn math: Starz churns ~12% a month (144% a year), Peacock loses ~100% of subs a year, Discovery ~75%, Max ~50%, Hulu/Disney+ ~60%, Netflix ~40% — so every streamer must re-acquire its whole base once or twice a year just to tread water. Content spend can no longer differentiate because everyone is doing it, subscription fatigue is real, and Sacks generalizes that no B2C subscription business works at 5-10% monthly churn. Standalone streaming subscription businesses therefore don't earn their capital and consolidate.
⚖ Why this verdict
fully deterministic — evaluate.py replays this from daily closes; nothing below is editable or hand-set
- Window: 2024-01-19 → 2025-01-19 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
- The call: ▼ SHORT WBD (primary play). WBD fell 8.0% over the window → direction-adjusted R = +8.0% (the call made money).
- Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +25.5%
→ α = +8.0 − (+25.5) = -17.4%
— what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the verdict uses.
Stock-selection read: +33.5% — did WBD move the predicted way relative to the market. The two only differ on a SHORT: this call was right about direction relative to the index but still cost money versus holding it.
- Rule fired:
· HIT — R ≥ +10% AND α ≥ +5▶ PARTIAL — R ≥ +5% OR α ≥ 0· MISS — everything else
- Credit: supporters of a PARTIAL earn 0.5 each, opposers the inverse — this feeds the scoreboard weights. supported: Chamath, Jason, Sacks | proxy-sensitive: PARA→HIT (+98.2%)
Conviction timeline
bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15
Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2024-01-19)
Plays
| expression | symbol | kind | relevance | rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▼ SHORT | WBD | stock | PRIMARY | Max/Discovery are the highest-churn services Chamath names |
| ▼ SHORT | CMCSA | stock | adjacent | Peacock paid $100M for one playoff game and loses ~100% of subs a year |
| ▼ SHORT | PARA | stock | adjacent | sub-scale standalone streamer, prime consolidation candidate |
Mention log
Who built this conviction
each voice's total force on the score — supports and opposes from every mention, weighted exactly as the replay applied them · share = % of all mention-driven movement
⏳ decay drained -53.6 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one
Score events
| episode | kind | Δ | after | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E162 2024-01-19 | init | +37.2 | 37.2 | E162 born by Sacks (explicit_prediction x3) [w=0.89] |
| E162 2024-01-19 | reinforce | +14.2 | 51.4 | E162 Chamath support x3 (new voice) [w=0.84] |
| E162 2024-01-19 | reinforce | +10.6 | 62.0 | E162 Jason support x2 (new voice) [w=0.97] |
| E163 2024-01-26 | decay | -2.5 | 59.5 | E163 silent |
| E164 2024-02-02 | decay | -2.4 | 57.2 | E164 silent |
| E165 2024-02-09 | decay | -2.3 | 54.9 | E165 silent |
| E166 2024-02-16 | decay | -2.2 | 52.7 | E166 silent |
| E167 2024-02-23 | decay | -2.1 | 50.6 | E167 silent |
| E168 2024-03-01 | decay | -2.0 | 48.5 | E168 silent |
| E169 2024-03-08 | decay | -1.9 | 46.6 | E169 silent |
| E170 2024-03-15 | decay | -1.9 | 44.7 | E170 silent |
| E171 2024-03-22 | decay | -1.8 | 42.9 | E171 silent |
| E172 2024-03-29 | decay | -1.7 | 41.2 | E172 silent |
| E173 2024-04-05 | decay | -1.6 | 39.6 | E173 silent |
| E174 2024-04-12 | decay | -1.6 | 38.0 | E174 silent |
| E175 2024-04-19 | decay | -1.5 | 36.5 | E175 silent |
| E176 2024-04-26 | decay | -1.5 | 35.0 | E176 silent |
| E177 2024-05-03 | decay | -1.4 | 33.6 | E177 silent |
| E178 2024-05-10 | decay | -1.3 | 32.3 | E178 silent |
| E179 2024-05-17 | decay | -1.3 | 31.0 | E179 silent |
| E180 2024-05-24 | decay | -1.2 | 29.7 | E180 silent |
| E181 2024-05-31 | decay | -1.2 | 28.6 | E181 silent |
| E182 2024-06-07 | decay | -1.1 | 27.4 | E182 silent |
| E183 2024-06-14 | decay | -1.1 | 26.3 | E183 silent |
| E184 2024-06-20 | decay | -1.1 | 25.3 | E184 silent |
| E185 2024-06-29 | decay | -1.0 | 24.3 | E185 silent |
| E186 2024-07-04 | decay | -1.0 | 23.3 | E186 silent |
| E187 2024-07-12 | decay | -0.9 | 22.3 | E187 silent |
| E188 2024-07-19 | decay | -0.9 | 21.5 | E188 silent |
| E189 2024-07-26 | decay | -0.9 | 20.6 | E189 silent |
| E190 2024-08-02 | decay | -0.8 | 19.8 | E190 silent |
| E191 2024-08-09 | decay | -0.8 | 19.0 | E191 silent |
| E192 2024-08-16 | decay | -0.8 | 18.2 | E192 silent |
| E193 2024-08-23 | decay | -0.7 | 17.5 | E193 silent |
| E194 2024-08-30 | decay | -0.7 | 16.8 | E194 silent |
| E195 2024-09-06 | decay | -0.7 | 16.1 | E195 silent |
| E196 2024-09-20 | decay | -0.6 | 15.5 | E196 silent |
| E197 2024-09-27 | decay | -0.6 | 14.9 | E197 silent |
| E198 2024-10-03 | decay | -0.6 | 14.3 | E198 silent |
| E199 2024-10-11 | decay | -0.6 | 13.7 | E199 silent |
| E200 2024-10-18 | decay | -0.5 | 13.1 | E200 silent |
| E201 2024-10-25 | decay | -0.5 | 12.6 | E201 silent |
| E202 2024-11-01 | decay | -0.5 | 12.1 | E202 silent |
| E203 2024-11-08 | decay | -0.5 | 11.6 | E203 silent |
| E204 2024-11-16 | decay | -0.5 | 11.2 | E204 silent |
| E205 2024-11-23 | decay | -0.4 | 10.7 | E205 silent |
| E206 2024-12-07 | decay | -0.4 | 10.3 | E206 silent |
| E207 2024-12-13 | decay | -0.4 | 9.9 | E207 silent |
| E208 2024-12-20 | decay | -0.4 | 9.5 | E208 silent |
| E209 2025-01-04 | decay | -0.4 | 9.1 | E209 silent |
| E210 2025-01-11 | decay | -0.4 | 8.7 | E210 silent |
| E211 2025-01-18 | decay | -0.3 | 8.4 | E211 silent |