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Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

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Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cable was a much better setup. The gems, and what I liked and watched, was always spread among different channels. But it was all on one bill, one programming guide, etc. And now that it's all DVR based, no ad is unskippable. Imagine Amazon or Google releasing a device that's so customer friendly that you can fully control the video stream.

> Cable was a much better setup No, thanks, the ability to pause/rewind/fast-forward, choice of sub/dub, and the ability to actually choose what to watch and when are something I am not willing to give up or negotiate on. With cable, you are watching a series that airs one episode per week, and then you missed an episode because you had something scheduled for that time slot the show was running on? Too bad, wait for…

> ability to pause/rewind/fast-forward, choice of sub/dub

FWIW, depending on the channel/show, one could do this with cable all the way back in the VCR era. Some shows had secondary audio programs with alternative languages and had multiple closed caption streams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_audio_program

I do agree, loads of content never bothered with this though and for sure managing recordings with a VHS or even a DVR was a lot messier than just clicking "play" on a stream. Just pointing out the tech technically existed back then to enable those choice of sub/dub options

> Makes me often wonder what people clamoring for the “good old days of cable” are actually smoking.

Fully agreed on this point.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#272
post #95
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a subscriber base of 8 million, assuming hypothetically that each pays $15 monthly over an entire year (a figure which is inflated), the resultant annual _revenue_ would be approximately $1.4 billion. However, their financial losses this year have exceeded even this ($1.6 billion in first 9 months alone) Their projection of achieving profitability in the next fiscal year seems, under these circumstances, quite o…

I'm confused about your numbers. Disney+ apparently has 150 million subscribers.

To downvoters: it's from the Wikipedia page...

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney could have done that and I would have paid. But they don’t make shows people want to watch any more. Live action Mulan could have been awesome! But they destroyed the themes of family honor and removed the music and comedy. Pander fatigue is real. I’ve got kids but I’m letting my Disney sub lapse. Anime is way better than the schlock Disney puts out.

The streamers make some shows that some people want to watch. Netflix’s report, first of its kind, showed 20 titles that you will have never heard of unless you use TikTok. Most people are watching the shows most other people are watching, it’s memetic. People want to feel like they’re a part of something; that is they’re are willing to pay $20/mo in Fear of Missing Out. Nobody has FOMO for old Disney content. The la…

My kids watch minecraft and roblox streams ad infinitumon youtube though.. I pay for ad free youtube and ad free streaming services but they still know of and want the latest toys. It's amazing. My kids never want to watch a movie or tv show, only youtube.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney could have done that and I would have paid. But they don’t make shows people want to watch any more. Live action Mulan could have been awesome! But they destroyed the themes of family honor and removed the music and comedy. Pander fatigue is real. I’ve got kids but I’m letting my Disney sub lapse. Anime is way better than the schlock Disney puts out.

Not to backseat parent or anything, but I would never let my kids watch Anime unsupervised. Disney is fine, and they aren't going to sexualize minors like anime often does.

...I'm really having trouble understanding this comment. Maybe my sarcasm detector is broken?

Watching anything unsupervised is of course age-dependent, so I'm not sure I understand the mechanism at work in that part of the comment.

But on the deeper matter of Disney vs. anime:

Obviously anime is a huge basket, so it depends on what studio and creator(s) we're talking about.

There's plenty of amazing, reinforcing, validating, positive anime to be found. The Miyazaki films are, without exception, lovely and perfectly messaged for kids of all ages, including this 41-year-old. There are many other non-Miyazaki works from Studio Ghibli that are similarly friendly.

Disney, on the other hand, absolutely sexualizes and gaslights vulnerable populations. I loved Beauty and the Beast growing up, but in retrospect I realize that it taught a generation of little girls to endure abuse in the hopes of some magical transformation. Aladin is horrifyingly racist and two-dimensional. Pocahontes? Holy fuck.

Compare the Disney and Ghibli renditions of The Little Mermaid and tell me which one is made with greater concern over kids' worldview and mental health, let alone faithful passage of the ecological message of novel.

The Disney formula is very often predicated on a woman whose value is in her sexuality and virginity, with men who are divided into distinctly "good" and "evil" camps who fight over her. It's absolutely the kind of sexualization that is toxic for kids.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#275
post #205

I think this primarily comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of where the value in streaming services lies from the perspective of old world media giants. The majority of people who buy streaming, I suspect, are interested mainly in the conveyor belt of diverse and engaging content. Sure I whack an episode of Rick and Morty on via Netflix once a month, but 90% of viewing is of new serialized content. Disney na…

On the flip side, the old content is exactly what I want. I'm a big fan of Star Trek, including TNG, Voyager, DS9, and even Enterprise. If I play music while I work, I find myself getting distracted by it. So, I prefer to have Star Trek playing in the background since I've seen every episode multiple many times it's really just comforting background competence porn. Other than that, I don't really watch much TV but i…

Why stream when you can either buy/torrent old media? I don't see a point to streaming when its more efficient to buy or download.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#276

Going one step up the ladder... So many products and services have been ruined by the need for a subscription/ recurring revenue model instead of a consumption / one time purchase model. I see so many products (mostly software) I would gladly pay $20 one time for but balk at paying $5/month in perpetuity for. Content in particular should be owned or rented, not subscribed to.

What are some?

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4K at 150" would look like crap. Do any streaming services support 8K? That is a lot of bandwidth and decode overhead.

>4K at 150" would look like crap I mean it would really depend how close you're sitting to the screen, wouldn't it?

The parent post said it looks pixelated. So, yes distance matters but is not relevant to my post because they already said it looks bad.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#278
post #205

I think this primarily comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of where the value in streaming services lies from the perspective of old world media giants. The majority of people who buy streaming, I suspect, are interested mainly in the conveyor belt of diverse and engaging content. Sure I whack an episode of Rick and Morty on via Netflix once a month, but 90% of viewing is of new serialized content. Disney na…

On the flip side, the old content is exactly what I want. I'm a big fan of Star Trek, including TNG, Voyager, DS9, and even Enterprise. If I play music while I work, I find myself getting distracted by it. So, I prefer to have Star Trek playing in the background since I've seen every episode multiple many times it's really just comforting background competence porn. Other than that, I don't really watch much TV but i…

I was gutted when Paramount took ST:Discovery off Netflix. But not only did it not cause me to shell out for a Paramount subscription, it made me decide that I was completely done with Star Trek. I’m cured!

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#279
post #276

Going one step up the ladder... So many products and services have been ruined by the need for a subscription/ recurring revenue model instead of a consumption / one time purchase model. I see so many products (mostly software) I would gladly pay $20 one time for but balk at paying $5/month in perpetuity for. Content in particular should be owned or rented, not subscribed to.

What are some?

A few that have come up recently:

* an intermittent fasting tracking app

* A Pomodoro timer app

* So many apps want a subscription (!) to remove ads

* Picker Wheel, an app that lets you spin a wheel of random choices

* several apps that let you "access" a video library of exercises

* Canva, Figma, Adobe, LucidChart, most design apps

By contrast, Ableton and most DAWs still have a completely reasonable one-time payment model, and then upgrade / expansion packs to fit your needs.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#280
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some?

A few that have come up recently: * an intermittent fasting tracking app * A Pomodoro timer app * So many apps want a subscription (!) to remove ads * Picker Wheel, an app that lets you spin a wheel of random choices * several apps that let you "access" a video library of exercises * Canva, Figma, Adobe, LucidChart, most design apps By contrast, Ableton and most DAWs still have a completely reasonable one-time paymen…

I don't think you're looking hard enough or think differently then me. I don't need an IF app, but if I did I'd use Siri. Try this for pomodoro. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timer-loops/id1662287175

For exercise I never felt like tech helped me at all. If it's a huge problem fdroid will probably have it free. I'm doing self hosting some cloud services and I've gone back to paper for so many since they're needlessly complex like taiga.io

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