system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does Netflix acquire and pay for content?

Does watching a show cause that show to get paid more? How does 8 dollars a month pay for all their content? Just curious.
gpt
Netflix has very different deals with all of their content partners.  Some are a flat rate to license the content, others are per play (anything from cents a play to dollars a play).  They make sure their content costs are less than their subscription costs by averaging all of the users habits.  For every customer that watches 5 things a day there's some that watch nothing.