There is a version of the streaming business that exists only on spreadsheets.

In that version, you produce a certain number of hours of content at a certain cost per hour, you distribute those hours across a certain number of subscribers, and you optimize the ratio. Content cost over engaged households. Cost per minute delivered. Cost per minute watched, if you are being rigorous about it. The variables are legible. The finance team can model them. The board can argue about them. Whole decks — entire strategy offsites — are organized around the denominator in that ratio.

And that ratio is, I have come to believe, describing the wrong business.