Elon Musk has told his millions of followers to cancel their Netflix subscriptions, and the internet did what it always does when Elon Musk opens his mouth: it caught fire. The full dustup is laid out here, and it's the same dance we've sat through a hundred times. A billionaire points at a streaming service, the fans reach for their remotes, and a dozen entertainment sites type the word "backlash" until it stops meaning anything.

My first reaction was a sigh, I'll admit, because a man who owns a rocket company is not watching the same Netflix I am. The one I know cancels perfectly good shows after two seasons and fills the gap with true crime I wouldn't sit through on a plane. But my second reaction was to look at my own viewing habits, and friends, I think the man stumbled onto a point, even if he arrived at it from orbit.

Here's my critique, and I'll own it: Netflix spent years chasing every audience except the one that pays the bills. Too many of their series read like focus-group homework, shows that lecture the subscriber instead of entertaining him, and the price kept climbing the whole while. That's a toll booth with attitude.

The tell, as always, is what survives. When Netflix makes something that respects the audience, a good mystery, a solid Western, anything with a story that starts at the beginning and ends at the end, we show up for it in numbers that surprise the executives every single time. They act surprised annually. It's the corporate equivalent of a man touching a hot stove and blaming the stove.

Now, do I think a mass cancellation driven by a tweet is going to fix anything? No. Anyone who's watched these campaigns come and go can tell you they last about as long as a New Year's resolution. People grumble, they threaten, and then the next show everybody's talking about arrives and they quietly resubscribe. Hollywood knows this, which is why the apologies are always so thin.

But the grumbling itself matters. The audience has finally figured out that the subscription button is a voting machine, and every month we get to pull the lever. If enough people decide a service that disdains them doesn't deserve their money, the spreadsheets notice before the executives do.

So cancel if you like. Or don't. Just stop pretending the people making this stuff don't know exactly what they're doing, because they do, and the only language they've ever understood is money walking out the door.