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Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#451

Post by ghaff »

MajorBee wrote: post #371
ryandrake wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. A single service, with a single bill, that makes available every movie, TV show, or album ever produced. That's it. If you can provide this you can have my money. This is not a technical problem anymore. It's a business problem. The company who can make these nebulous "licensing problems" and "distribution rights issues" go away can make a fortune. I don't care that Company A can't distribute the digital version…

> Yes. A single service, with a single bill, that makes available every movie, TV show, or album ever produced. That's it. If you can provide this you can have my money. For this, don’t expect to get this kind of service for 10 or 20 bucks a month; be prepared to shell out at least $100 or even more. Would you be willing to do that? How many people would be willing to do that?

Exactly. I don't watch a lot of video and there's very little that I need to watch right now. I'm very happy that my video bill is mostly just Netflix plus the odd purchase vs. the $100 or so I was paying for cable TV.

I suspect that most people aren't actually complaining about fragmentation. They want one $15-20/month site that has everything.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#452

Post by bravo22 »

aero-glide2 wrote: post #431
asperous wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually are doing pretty large buybacks though: https://www.barrons.com/articles/tech-giants-have-ramped-up-... Apple recently $77B in buybacks, Alphabet $8.5B, Facebook $3.9B

They could have used that $77B to fund fusion research, carbon capture research, build private space stations and put man on Mars, but no they wanted to make their already high share price even higher.

the investors who get the money back through share buybacks can do that with the 77B. There is no reason for Tim Cook to be leading fusion research and everything else you listed.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#453

Post by fullshark »

miketyson2000 wrote: post #10

As much as I dislike Amazon, I am continually surprised at how hands off their streaming creations seem to be. Expanse is probably biggest anti-corporate rant on TV I saw in a while. If they continue to treat their streaming arms as another business and not PR, it is a great move.

I guess Amazon hasn't yet been overtaken by a MBAS desperate for synergy deciding their programming should double as advertising for their other products yet.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#454

Post by ajpkco »

aero-glide2 wrote: post #431
asperous wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually are doing pretty large buybacks though: https://www.barrons.com/articles/tech-giants-have-ramped-up-... Apple recently $77B in buybacks, Alphabet $8.5B, Facebook $3.9B

They could have used that $77B to fund fusion research, carbon capture research, build private space stations and put man on Mars, but no they wanted to make their already high share price even higher.

The $77B didn't vanish, it went back to shareholders. Indeed Apple could have used it to fund fusion research, but this seems like a complete stretch of their expertise and capacity to execute on a project like that, the money could just have ended up being wasted on projects that went nowhere. Shareholders can cash out, the government tax the capital gains, and both entities can use the cash in the investments that seems worthy to them

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#455

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #287
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - and this is by far the strangest aspect of it all. My local telecom advertising that Netflix is bundled into the cell service. Netflix licensing shows from BBC or ordering content from other outfits. Netflix being built on top of AWS infrastructure. Streaming brands being available as “apps” on AppleTV. HBO becoming a property of Paramount, and both being owned by ATT. So many examples of complex relationships…

All this superficial cooperation is a front to hide the anti competitive and price gouging that’s happening. Joe average doesn’t understand that the marginal cost of delivering a 4K stream is a few cents, nor does he think critically about why it costs 9.99 to “buy” a decade old movie that’s liable to be removed his account at any time.

Well, this is showbiz. The whole idea has always been to advertise an exciting show that “you absolutely must see today” and place it behind a barrier that you must pay to cross. How much you are willing to pay for it, what “it” is, not to mention if you will be happy with the entertainment is a very old question. “Joe average” has never been in the position to fully comprehend the economics. And those have always been very difficult to understand even for all the people involved in the production. There are always periods in which a select few acquire a superior understanding of how to extract the most value from that transaction for themselves. Today most of these people are software visionaries who realized ahead of time which way the wind is blowing. Is it a “front” is a tricky question because this has always been the way. Twenty years it was cable TV infrastructure and physical media. Decades before that it was a film distribution and theatre network. And then earlier it was having a theatre with troupes of actors and lighting/stenography technicians. And for most of human history, it was traveling with an exciting minstrel show from town to town. And it was always to some extent a rip-off ;)

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#456

Post by darkwizard42 »

aero-glide2 wrote: post #431
asperous wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually are doing pretty large buybacks though: https://www.barrons.com/articles/tech-giants-have-ramped-up-... Apple recently $77B in buybacks, Alphabet $8.5B, Facebook $3.9B

They could have used that $77B to fund fusion research, carbon capture research, build private space stations and put man on Mars, but no they wanted to make their already high share price even higher.

Actually a better way to think about it is that they are compensating their shareholders...

That $77B that is now returned to shareholders can be spent on whatever those shareholders want. It isn't really Apple's money to begin with... kind of the issue with being a public company. Unless of course its shareholders would look at that investment as sound, which might be a stretch given Apple's lack of background in any of those fields (maybe carbon capture given they have a great understanding of their supply chain and could already be thinking of ways to reduce their energy impact)

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#458

Post by SilasX »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #456
aero-glide2 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have used that $77B to fund fusion research, carbon capture research, build private space stations and put man on Mars, but no they wanted to make their already high share price even higher.

Actually a better way to think about it is that they are compensating their shareholders... That $77B that is now returned to shareholders can be spent on whatever those shareholders want. It isn't really Apple's money to begin with... kind of the issue with being a public company. Unless of course its shareholders would look at that investment as sound, which might be a stretch given Apple's lack of background in an…

>That $77B that is now returned to shareholders can be spent on whatever those shareholders want

Well, 85% of the $77 billion, anyway.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#459

Post by throwitaway1235 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #267
DrBazza wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piracy is competition to bad content behavior I really wish we had the bandwidth we have now, back in the Napster-era. Napster, and others forced, persuaded and cajoled the music industry to consolidate, whether they liked it or not, on Spotify, and iTunes. If we'd had easy free sharing of movies, it's not hard to envisage something similar to what we see now in the music industry forced on the movie companies. Now…

> Frankly, I'm glad I have a waning interest in modern movies as I get older, and I'm actually more interested in watching old black and white movies that are "free to air" in my country. My mother recently gave me a sub-account to Netflix and while I was thrilled to rewatch some shows I liked (like the OA or good old star trek) I was quickly submerged by the sheer amount of YA novels adapted in TV shows or movies th…

The Criterion collection is a good choice for those with a more discerning taste in film. Well curated too. But expensive.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#460

Post by res0nat0r »

divs1210 wrote: post #225
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Piracy is competition to bad content behavior. It's a meaningful consumer response to monopoly, balkanization and other anti-consumer practices.

THIS. Forcing consumers to sign up to 10 platforms to watch 10 movies will no doubt lead to a shift back to torrents. YouTube is pretty good in this regard, as it allows paying for renting a single movie for a weekend for a reasonable price.

This is the obvious outcome from customers wanting to drop the all you can eat cable model and pick and choose.

If any one "stream everything" service popped up with every providers content, it would cost $200+ a month, and essentially a cable tv subscription all over again just without the cable box, and everyone would complain it's too expensive and go back to piracy.

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