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Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

531–540 of 844 posts

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#531

This makes it very likely that the beloved Stargate franchise will return as an Amazon Prime exclusive franchise, which will be great news for those of us like myself with appetite for 60+ more seasons of that show (after the 17 seasons that have already been made). I watched the sci-fi show "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime Video. Season 4 (the one made by Amazon Prime Video) felt like it had a tenth of the budget compa…

SG-1 is a great show. It holds up surprisingly well for its age. Strikes a great balance between serious and light-hearted, and the self-contained episodes often have interesting ethical or social issues. I'm also fond on how the early episodes emphasize that humans are new to interplanetary travel and are still figuring things out. There are several episodes where SG-1 travels to another planet and actually messes t…

Honestly, I loved Atlantis and Universe. Atlantis was purely character driven imo. The plot was more or less a rehash of SG-1 missions to the point they directly start referencing the SG-1 mission report lol. But McKay, Sheppard, Weir, Ronan, Teyla, Carson, and Todd were all very fun characters. SG-1 was carried by the strong performances from O'Neil, Carter, Jackson, Teal'c and Hammond + interesting plots. So I was able to forgive the lazy plots in Atlantis since they focused more on the characters.

Universe was really cool. They made some critical mistakes early that made it hard to see where the show could go, but the last season was so good and setup some cool stuff just to never get the opportunity to explain it. Rush getting control of Destiny so early really messed up the pacing of the show imo, but I would have loved to see the show continue.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to break up big tech. Amazon shouldn't be ten companies in one. Google shouldn't be able to set web and mobile standards, then reap ad monies by forcing everyone to accept their anticompetitive changes. Apple shouldn't be the sole guardian of iPlatform. You can't have a protection racket on 50% of all commerce (phones >> gaming consoles) and enforce what gets put on the device. These companies don't h…

> Microsoft is literally the only tech giant behaving correctly, and it's probably because they got slapped with antitrust in the 2000s. Ask Slack if they agree. Microsoft used the dominance of Office to take over that market by bundling Teams.

What's more amazing to me is Google had Chat and Docs/Sheets all ready to go and integrate and take on Office and instead they closed down chat and brought out Hangouts which I've still never understood.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#533

If I had to pick a single politically uniting issue, breaking up Amazon and big tech would be it. Why has this not happened yet? Is the out of power party afraid the in power party will get credit? (This has been discussed when both parties were in power) If the government can't get something with this kind of support done, I fear the road we are headed down .

If I had to pick a single politically uniting issue, breaking up Amazon and big tech would be it Is it though? Where's the polling data suggesting a majority of people back splitting up Amazon or Google?

A simple google search can return these results:

https://www.vox.com/2021/1/26/22241053/antitrust-google-face...

https://www.investors.com/news/technology/ibd-tipp-poll-majo...

https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/virus-outbreak-...

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#534

As others suggest, simply opt-out of these destructive monopolies. I’m in Europe and have been immensely enjoying MUBI[0] for the last few months. Many classic and new films, updating all the time - and I’ve had none of the streaming problems that some AppStore reviews have mentioned. Also supports new independent film-makers (which piracy sadly does not do). Thoroughly recommended. [0] https://mubi.com/showing

The problem lies with the fact that the average person isn't smart enough to understand that some of these companies are destructive. Outside of tech, no one is concerned with privacy -> TikTok. Outside of tech, no one is thinking amazon is a monopoly. outside of tech, no one cares.

With that mentality in mind, coordinating effective boycots of services is impossible. Governments need to step up and enforce a certain balance between capitalism and socialism. On one end of the spectrum you get monopolies and on the otherside you mob-rule and staterun monopolies.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our whole family has been doing that this year. Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around. This was tougher growing up when kids all watched the same shows and talked about them, but with content so all over the place now that common thread seems to be mostly gone at school (outside of internet video stuff).

> Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around. My girlfriend somehow grew up completely unaware of Star Trek, so I introduced her to The Next Generation last year and we've been watching it (rewatching in my case, but for the first time in over two decades) one episode a day. It's so relaxing, in a way that almost no modern TV is. No end-of-episode cliffhangers or other mechanisms trying to ma…

I feel the same way! My partner also hadn't watched much Star Trek before. During the pandemic, we watched all of Enterprise, Voyager, and now into DS9 (I had watched TNG so much when I was younger I wanted to start with my less-watched series). The episodes are calm, and the competence of the characters is refreshing as well.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft is literally the only tech giant behaving correctly, and it's probably because they got slapped with antitrust in the 2000s. Ask Slack if they agree. Microsoft used the dominance of Office to take over that market by bundling Teams.

Was Skype bundled as a part of Office? I'm not sure if it was included or if it was a license add on. The companies I worked at that had slack licenses still had teams using what they considered to be the best product. Slack, Hipchat (remember them?), and Zoom. There's also more to it than 'bundling.' Trusting your chat communications to the same company doing your email is a more compelling story than sending it to…

Skype for Business is licensed separately, from what I recall. Back when I was L1 I'd have to install Skype for Business from portal.office.com, because it wasn't installed as part of the standard Office2016/O365 package.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#537
post #88

> It was overturned by new legislation in 2020. Interestingly, there are some guys powerful enough to push that kind of legislation... I don't like Musk but sometimes I'd really love to leave for Mars :-)

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27290489.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#538
A radical idea but please hear me out: A new Stargate series that is not a reboot, not a remake, not set in an alternate timeline, not set far in the past or future, but rather a continuation of the story we know!

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#539
post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, though I think the time/generational factor may cause it to trend downward. My parents unhappily paid cable prices their whole life. I've never once paid for cable TV and never will be willing to pay that much for subscription entertainment, but I'm willing to pay for one streaming service and have considered a second at times. Anecdotally reading places like here, I don't think I'm an uncommon c…

Isn't it an issue if "willingness to pay" drops too much? In the end, content costs money to make. If money coming in goes down, then there might not be enough money to make all that content.

Big budget content is usually the worst. There were many pieces of indie media that had heart and shoestring budgets, that have been pushed out the market.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, they came down hard of torrents. My neighbor got busted a few years back by Xfinity, and it was a big deal.

>... and it was a big deal. It's my understanding that Xfinity sends a few warning notices, just a little slap on the wrist, before they end up terminating your account or something (though a quick cursory Google brings up a Reddit thread where someone claiming to have worked for Cumcrust said they never saw any accounts terminated for that). I know I received one letter like 7 years ago for downloading 'Christmas Va…

maybe times have changed, but before I got a VPN, I used to get copyright notices all the time. I didn't notice for a few years because they went to an @comcast.com email address that I never checked. when I finally looked, I saw pages and pages of sternly written emails. if freely torrenting movies for years isn't enough to get disconnected, I dunno what is.
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