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Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#601

Post by NikolaNovak »

socialist_coder wrote: post #598

I wish people didn't watch so much television. It's too good and too easy to watch an unlimited amount of content. Every hour you spend being entertained in front of your screens is an hour less you could be spending building actual social bonds with people in your community. There is a correlation to increasing tv watching and decreased social club engagement. By social clubs I mean bowling clubs, skating clubs, 4H…

>>"Every hour you spend being entertained in front of your screens is an hour less you could be spending building actual social bonds with people in your community."

I feel it didn't used to be like that; there was a brief period of limited TV choices where it seemed to increase the bonds - it was a shared experience, and unlike most shared experiences which you have with couple of people physically present, it was shared with any number of friends colleagues and strangers. "Did you see the movie last night" or "Did you catch Ed Sullivan" show, do even "Remember the Friends episode where...". It was a common cultural reference point.

Now of course there's so much content we are more divergent and everybody watches their own TV show or Movie or Youtube channel or TikTok etc.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#602

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

bombcar wrote: post #532
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #496

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.

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.

It does seem like a big missed opportunity. My only thought is the failure of Wave loomed large and people didn’t want to repeat it. Consumer messengers with huge user bases all had simplified UIs and that seemed like a better market to try (repeatedly) to break into.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#603

Post by FredPret »

potatoman22 wrote: post #440
proto-n wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism? Greed is a very human emotion, corporations are like very powerful sociopaths. No-emotion machines that optimize for a single end goal (shareholder money) within the given ruleset: the law. (Or more realistically whatever they can get away with while still turning profit, ie profit is greater than whatever the repercussions cost).

In many ways, Capitalism is fueled by greed.

That’s the genius of it. Why fight human nature?

As parent said, corporations are restricted only by the market and by the legal system, so it’s up to the voters to implement effective taxes and rules as needed

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#604

Post by bakuninsbart »

rocqua wrote: post #498
watwatinthewat wrote: post #397

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.

Distribution costs have decreased greatly, while markets have grown remarkably. Looking at inflation adjusted cost of blockbuster movies today, film company revenue or indie scenes across the globe, I find it hard to argue that the last 20 years have been bad for the industry. Disruptive, for sure, but this creates winners and losers.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#606

Post by tomjen3 »

ghaff wrote: post #435
tomjen3 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never paid for networks, we paid for a handful of shows that were worth watching, which happened to be on different channels because physics. Now they are on different platforms, because no good reason at all. A copyright holder of a creative work should be able to set the price, but should not be able to use their monopolistic powers to control who pays the price. Let each channel decide if they want to buy a giv…

So let's imagine the streaming services operate like channels--which is to say they have some content they get created and other content that they license. Now imagine there's a common platform or at least common portal that aggregates them all and bills you for access to everything. You've now effectively recreated the cable bundle and your monthly bill is probably going to be $100-$200/month. (Maybe more if it incl…

I wouldn't pay that much, which suggests that I wouldn't have access to everything, but I would probably get best or alternatively everything in a certain niche (ie. a sci-fy channel that has nothing but sci-fy). Why pay for romantic comedy and horror when I don't want to watch it?

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#607

Post by tomjen3 »

margaretdouglas wrote: post #288
tomjen3 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never paid for networks, we paid for a handful of shows that were worth watching, which happened to be on different channels because physics. Now they are on different platforms, because no good reason at all. A copyright holder of a creative work should be able to set the price, but should not be able to use their monopolistic powers to control who pays the price. Let each channel decide if they want to buy a giv…

> which happened to be on different channels because physics. So why do we see wars for who gets to stream Friends/Seinfeld/The Office/etc now? The networks don't own that content, it was just physics? > Let each channel decide if they want to buy a given show at a given price. That's not how this works now, nor has it ever worked this way. If Network A is paying for the exclusive broadcast rights, then Network B doe…

You are quite right in that it doesn't work this way, I am advocating a change in the law. Remember copyright is a temporary monopoly granted to promote science and the useful arts.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#608

Post by jonny_eh »

jandrese wrote: post #510
llampx wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing that that was the average monthly cost of a cable subscription. Mine was never more than $30-40 when I needed cable for the internet.

When I had cable the $30 plan was the "just the stuff you can get OTA plus some shopping channels" plan. If you wanted actual cable channels you had the choice of: 1. "Basic" bundle, $60 + $20 in fees + $8-15 per set to rent the box. Got you ESPN, Food Network, SciFi, Cartoon Network, USA 2. "Complete" bundle, $100 + $20 in fees + $8-15 per set to rent the box. Got you BBC, a bunch of foreign language channels, Starz…

> You could also add HBO to either plan for $15 a month

Please note that that was only a channel (or two). You still had to tune to watch the movie/show you wanted! For the same price today (not even adjusted for inflation), you can watch any of this content on demand, on any device, but it has waaay more content available.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#609

Post by caycep »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #23

So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.

Tbh, probably completely off topic, but the first thing that came to mind are alcohol regulations at least in CA preventing vineyards and distilleries from opening or operating restaurants...hence the rise in "educational tasting/pairing classes"

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#610

Post by ElFitz »

Joeri wrote: post #422
ElFitz wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they did and all content is licensed to everyone, there will be nothing distinguishing the different services. Pricing and UX? But even though some companies are incapable of making good UIs, UX isn’t much of a moat. At the same time, differentiation through pricing leads to races to the bottom and unsustainable / worthless markets (and, in our case, probably diminishing content quality).

If UX isn’t much of a moat, why do most of the streaming platforms get it wrong? Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime have terrible UX for example. You might argue people don’t care about UX and that’s why it’s not a moat, and maybe they don’t, but personally I wish everyone would just plug their content into netflix and I could use that as the only platform.

Because we indeed have been proven, time and time again, that people will rarely pay a premium for UX.

We will complain about it, mock it, but rare are those willing to pay more for it (or even merely change products), unless the advantage is significant (ie Netflix vs P2P & streaming websites)

Regarding Netflix, honestly, their UX is a mess.

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