Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox • Hacker News Board

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#181

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

bighi wrote: post #132

Y_Y wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People didn't like this comment, but I think it's fair enough, at least from a capitalist perspective. The company is doing what it's supposed to do and the system is working as it should. (This is one of the reasons why I oppose capitalism)

Kind of. Depends on what part of capitalism you're referring to. Because monopolies greatly reduce or limit competition, and competition is the big force that makes capitalism work properly. Capitalism without competition is no different from Communism or a lot of other systems in which one party rules supreme.

In theory Communism is rule by the proletariat, monopolistic Capitalism is rule by a very few super-rich shareholders/owners. They seem like markedly different situations to me.

Can you explain further?

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#182

Post by swagtricker » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #43

jakozaur wrote: post #24

Sane antitrust regulations should kill this deal. It is bad for everybody other than shareholders of those two companies. In particular bad for customers, other companies and employees: https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2172555... https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21695385-profits-are...

True, if only there was any sane anti-trust regulation in the last 20 years.

They tried - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

The findings were 110% correct. The ultimate settled "remedy" was a joke.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#183

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

jamiethompson wrote: post #67

emodendroket wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't using that one?

I know I am

I genuinely do, occasionally. Which reminds me, I went through this goofy dictionary.com slideshow of "great slang from the '90s we should bring back!" and quite a few of them I did not recognize as the least bit dated. Kind of an alienating experience.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#184

Post by jsmthrowaway » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:16 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #93

exelius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is only interested in the creative/film assets; broadcast distribution and news/sports are being spun off.

broadcast distribution and news/sports are being spun off Is that official? Disney has bet (and lost) a lot of money on sports broadcast over the past few years. I could see them trying to consolidate at least Fox sports into their current bet on sports.

They'd have to then avoid anticompetitive attention due to owning ESPN, though.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#185

Post by nottorp » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

So what are the next movie franchises to get Disney-ized, like they did to Star Wars? All the super hero stuff, I get, but that's not the only thing that 21st Century makes is it?

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#186

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

bsiemon wrote: post #160

trisimix wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isnt lucasarts the game studio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Clone_Wars_(200... is on netflix right now. I think it was made by lucas arts.

Just got excited .. nope, not on my Netflix (UK).

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#187

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

glenstein wrote: post #157

cableshaft wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost seems like Netflix knew what they were doing when they started funding a bunch of original content. I remember when people thought they were being silly.

Exactly. Imagine where Netflix would be without it's original content at this point. Initially, I thought it was just a kind of frustration. For the cost to acquire rights to shows, you could just create your own original content that you own outright, and they did just that. But now I see that even if the cost of acquiring other series were dirt cheap, the negotiating posture of companies offering the content to Net…

But didn't Netflix make the worst move possible?

They developed a heap of MARVEL original content, that Netflix funded, which now Disney is able to pull from them.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#188

Post by bobajeff » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #162

jakozaur wrote: post #24

Sane antitrust regulations should kill this deal. It is bad for everybody other than shareholders of those two companies. In particular bad for customers, other companies and employees: https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2172555... https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21695385-profits-are...

Antitrust regulations should kill google and facebook, but they’re not. In my opinion those two are much bigger fish to fry than two movie companies.

I wonder what would happen if Google was divided into a bunch of smaller but cooperative regional search engines/datacenters.

Would that be better or worse for competition?

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#189

Post by jandrese » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #161

paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #60

Why not go all the way and merge all companies into 1 big one. Being born on the wrong side of the iron curtain I already saw economy based on monopolies. Communism failed because prices were centrally set. We knew how to build useful things (that don't break 1 day after warranty) but not which ones to build and how many. (wiki) A price signal is information conveyed to consumers and producers, via the price charged…

Ironically, capitalism converging to few monopolies or quasi-monopolies controlling everything was one of the big arguments anti-capitalists used to use when I was younger: that if it's got to be monopolies or quasi-monopolies, then it's better if they are State-controlled monopolies.

State controlled is little better than privately held.

In a public company only people who own a stake get a vote, and their vote is proportional to how much of a stake they own (the rich get most of the votes). In a State owned company every taxpayer is a stakeholder, the main difference being that you get exactly 1 vote no matter how much you pay in taxes.

But voting is a very inefficient way to steer a company, private or public. Markets are orders of magnitude more efficient. That's why we try to avoid monopolies as much as possible. Sometimes it doesn't make sense and that's why we have heavily regulated industries like water/power delivery, fire, police, etc... In most cases though you want to keep a competitive marketplace going to force companies to serve their customers properly.

Although capitalism is the best system by far for managing resources it has flaws. It naturally concentrates power (money) at the top over time and chokes itself to death. That's why there needs to be an independent entity (the government) that steps in and breaks up the ossified wealth to keep the system from dying.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#190

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 4:30 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #170

exelius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is only interested in the creative/film assets; broadcast distribution and news/sports are being spun off.

Disney is also developing their own streaming service. They see the writing on the wall. In 20 years, broadcast and cable will be dead. Probably within 10. They can roll their own streaming service (because there isn't any decent ones to buy). But content is expensive. If the launch with Disney&Fox content while denying Netflix any Disney and Fox content, they'll have a shot at surviving.

After the merger, Disney will be the majority owner of Hulu.

https://www.recode.net/2017/12/14/16771712/hulu-disney-acqui...