Video streaming, dependency, and the world of work

analyzing asymmetrical power relations between Netflix and screenwriters in the Brazilian context

Abstract

This article investigates how video streaming services are transforming labor practices in the Brazil’s video industry, as well as the economic, political, and cultural foundations that have enabled these changes. While the literature on platformization often highlights technological infrastructures affordances as the primary drivers of asymmetric power relations, this study argues that the phenomenon cannot be fully understood without also considering the local conditions that sustain such dependency. To this end, we present a case tudy of Netflix’s entry into the field of Brazilian series production, examining the implications of this process for the screenwriting stage between 2016 and 2025. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines document analysis and in-depth interviews with screenwriters, the article contends that the dependency relationship established by Netflix stems both from the service’s opaque internal policies, marked by informational asymmetry, and from the political and economic crises that have shaped Brazil’s recent history. In this context, the screenwriting class’s limited bargaining power is also a direct result of reduced public funding mechanisms, the institutional weakening of Ancine, and the stagnation of regulatory discussions in the sector.