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Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#691

Post by tmp231 »

cabalamat wrote: post #682
akira2501 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piracy is competition to bad content behavior. No it isn't. It's a workaround. This is an 8 billion dollar deal, there would have to be an impossible amount of piracy for it to count as "competition." This is precisely the reason why government regulation here is correct, as consumers, we don't have a lever long enough to have any real impact on the core problem. And we're just one side of the deal. These types of…

Government regulation would be one solution. Another would be less government regulation, specifically making piracy legal.

Less government regulation doesn’t mean violating contract law.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#692

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

neuralRiot wrote: post #677
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.

>We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Why? We’re not talking about food, water or the environment. There is where laws should be enacted or enforced.

Well technically the way I understand it, all the law should be enacted and enforced everywhere.

This is a classic 'culture is not important, doesn't matter' line of thinking. Cultural products influence people a great deal. Especially when they are young.

If monopoly power is influencing culture, the way it can with any industry by incentivizing low-quality or bad pricing, then it should be to some extent over-seen.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#693

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

joe_the_user wrote: post #674
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.

Well, the end of the 1930's to 1950's vertical monopoly shouldn't detract from the many ways the entertainment industry is monopolistic today. Indeed, my impression is no one could even summarize all the ways unions, rights, contracts and etc divide profits, limit who can do what, etc. My impression buying a historical piece of the entertainment industries is a lot like buying a company with large patent portfolio. N…

We definitely now know Apple won't be buying the James Bond franchise and making it exclusive. That would have been a huge loss for the other GAFA's entertainment libraries.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#694

Post by tmp231 »

bogwog wrote: post #634
aerosmile wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how the term "break up big tech" includes "break" in it. Kind of makes you realize what's really at stake here. Sure, you don't want monopolies, but is breaking US companies going to actually prevent monopolies, or are you just shifting the balance of power from US companies to Chinese companies? Because you sure as hell are not going to break those up - and Tik Tok has demonstrated what should be obvious: we…

This is such a cowardly view. > or are you just shifting the balance of power from US companies to Chinese companies? That's not going to happen. The biggest Chinese companies only exist because of stolen technology. This is a well documented fact. Tencent for example has this business model: 1) Identify trending games from competitors outside of China 2) Clone those games and release them internationally 3) Petition…

This is such a cowardly view.

> If anything, breaking up these monopolies will lead to more innovation

Yes, let’s violate a company’s right to exist and conduct business just because we don’t like ads, or have preferences for how the run things. If you’re so concerned that they are not doing the right thing, then you go out and do it.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#695

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #195
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of confusing experience is certainly advantageous towards extracting more from the viewer. It’s like shopping malls being designed to be difficult to get out of.

It’s a far less confusing experience than it was pre streaming services. You basically paid for an unknown item - you did not even know which content was going to be available or when it would be available. Now you can search for what you want to watch, follow the prompts, and it shows you the price, and you agree or disagree. And then you cancel if you do not want it anymore. Some of the purchasing flows can surely…

Oh yeah definitely. It's all a matter of perspective and possibility enabled by the technology.

But it's definitely still structured to kinda slightly force your hand towards a subscribtion, and then towards maybe forgetting to cancel it in a couple weeks etc.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#696

Post by secabeen »

archie_diak wrote: post #640
rhino369 wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no mechanism to buy all Doge and the "market cap" of Doge includes lost coins. If you bought all of Doge, its value would be gone since it would be like it didn't exist. You might as well calculate the market cap of baseball cards. It's just not the right way to measure the worth of a crypto. Put another way, if Doge owners decided to collectively sell it would be worth 0.

Hypothetically if some whale wanted to 'buy' Doge say to shut it down or something, they would probably have to spend a lot more than the market cap and as you yourself point out they still wouldn't have bought all the Doge that existed. OP was comparing amounts i.e $8bn seems like peanuts when 'joke' coins are hypothetically worth more than $44bn, and not really comparing market caps (which doesn't really make sense…

True, but the flipside is also the case, if someone wanted to sell a significant fraction of a cryptocurrency or high-value stock, they wouldn't necessarily get close to the current market cap either.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#697

Post by jacquesm »

bogwog wrote: post #628
edgyquant wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I can agree about Microsoft. I’ve come to not hate them in the last decade but they definitely have been buying up the developer scene too. They aren’t as brazen as Google I’ll agree (likely because of the antitrust issues) but they are still setting themselves up as a monopoly over the long term.

The other day I was helping my brother setup Python on his Windows 10 computer. So I went to python.org and installed it as usual, then why I typed "python" in the console, it launched the Microsoft Store app and took me to the download page for their distribution of Python. Apparently, it's some kind of alias "feature" they added to Windows at some point. What legitimate reason is there for that if not to try and tr…

A big part of this is because people see Nadella as some kind of angel after the reign of terror by Ballmer but that's only on a relative scale. Same shit, different day. The second component is Bill Gates' philantropism, which is used to whitewash a whole pile of despicable behavior (as the CEO of Microsoft, never mind the rest).

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#698

Post by silisili »

divbzero wrote: post #681
tguedes wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From https://stratechery.com/2021/distribution-and-demand/ : `I do get the argument that Prime Video is a waste of money for Amazon; Brad Stone notes in his new book Amazon Unbound that “there was little evidence of a connection between viewing and purchasing behavior” and that “any correlation was also obfuscated by the fact that Prime was growing rapidly on its own.”` Is that nugget actually true or is Bezos just o…

I’m skeptical of the argument that Prime Video attracts Prime subscriptions. The true motivation could be Hollywood glamor, or having the data to link viewing behavior to product recommendations.

It does, for me. Prime Video is just the nudge I need to justify the cost.

If not for Prime Video I'd probably not be a member, and without that fast free shipping, would probably buy more from elsewhere.

All of that said, I generally don't like Prime Video so don't think it's worth much as a standalone.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#699

Post by jerf »

TMWNN wrote: post #643
jerf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider it hands down better than any Star Trek except possibly TNG. And that's giving TNG some grace due to being a bit older; take that away and I'll give SG-1 the prize. I will agree that people can reasonably disagree about Deep Space Nine vs SG-1. But that's the level of quality we're talking about, in my opinion. It's top tier, and much less well known. Also strongly recommend binging the first season in par…

>Also strongly recommend binging the first season in particular; they did a very good job of conveying the feeling of humans blundering about not really knowing what they are doing in the big new universe, and it really comes across when watched relatively quickly on top of each other. One thing I've never enjoyed about Star Trek is how the Enterprise /DS9/ Voyager and its crew are the ones that always save the day/w…

I'd go with, yes and no, probably mostly no the way you mean it. They are always the elite team. It's clear others are functioning, yeah, but while I haven't watched this in a while I don't recall SG-4 ever saving the galaxy as we know it.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#700

Post by jonny_eh »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #323
johnchristopher wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Netflix is terrible if you have good taste in movies. I'm with you on the old black/white movies. I actually think Amazon got a great deal buying MGM. If TCM was available, Nefflix should look into buying it. They have a great library of old movies.

TCM content is mostly available on HBO Max.
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