Netflix had me just where it wanted me this weekend: home. I was one among likely millions of Americans whose attention was divided between contending with Winter Storm Fern and watching streaming content. Both, in their fashion, constituted “work”: my driveway required regular shoveling if I had any hope of keeping ahead of the snow accumulation, but my mind needed to be focused, some of the time, on the new action movie I was scheduled to review in this space: The Rip, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as morally questionable and/or compromised Miami police officers. Like a man possessed, I would dart between my cozy home office, where I would watch The Rip in increments, and my increasingly snow-covered driveway. Back and forth I went: Netflix, driveway; Netflix, driveway; Netflix, driveway.

What did it matter to them if I was consuming their content in dribs and drabs? At least I wasn’t in a movie theater — nor were too many others. The box-office totals this wintry weekend were grim: some ghastly-looking artificial intelligence thriller called Mercy was in the top spot with a measly $11 million, which was sufficient to outrank Avatar: Fire and Ash, Zootopia 2, and The Housemaid. Only Netflix knows how many of this weekend’s involuntary homebodies tuned into The Rip, but with stars like Damon and Affleck, numbers were likely not completely trivial. 

But surely the bros who dreamt up Good Will Hunting are sufficiently loyal to the moviegoing habit to be incensed that their latest production would be watched distractedly amid the worst winter storm in memory? Then again, maybe not. In a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Damon sounded resigned to the Netflix way of working, which assumes audience........

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