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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

#321

Post by tetromino_ »

tom_walters wrote: post #29

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…

> Meanwhile Netflix has built some of the most sophisticated production tooling in the world, and leveraged cross-country content like no old-world provider ever has.

I stopped subscribing to Netflix around 2 years ago because that "sophisticated production tooling" was producing almost purely garbage tier content. With the exception of Black Mirror, there were no compelling new shows - and Black Mirror on its own was not worth the monthly subscription.

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

#322

Post by gchamonlive »

bombcar wrote: post #84
breckenedge wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to be the consumer, not the product. With large media companies, it’s inevitable that I will become the product. Cable was supposed to be free of commercials. Streaming was supposed to be free of commercials. Thankfully books are still free of commercials.

I’m so sorry to ruin your day. https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...

Thank god this isn't pervasive

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

#323

Post by vel0city »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #320
vel0city wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this guy again > free of commercials This isn't "not disrupted by ads". This means no ads. Free of commercials, not limited commercials. Ad-free means ad-free. No mustard means no mustard not just no grey poupon. Not a hard concept to understand. And once again, cable had interruptive ads since the first cable was connected to the first subscriber. So even scoped to just pre-roll ads you're still denying highly docum…

the reason it's called a strawman is that you're not attacking what the person was actually arguing. stop it.

> free of commercials

This is literally what they said. If they wanted to say something else they should say something else, because cable was not free of commercials. This is not a straw man.

And once again, cable had interruptive ads since the first cable was connected to the first subscriber. Cable's original point was by no means "freedom from ads."

stop it.

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

#324

Post by e40 »

toxican wrote: post #188
e40 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got the Amazon email yesterday and called them. No way to get a prorated refund so I turned off auto renew on Prime. I had a nice conversation with the lady and said the only thing that would prevent the lapse of Prime would be no ads for the base price. If people cancel in droves they reconsider their position.

>No way to get a prorated refund Maybe this is an annual payment thing? Because I paid monthly and cancelled the other day online and it offered to refund me back $2 and some change left in my current month.

They said if I had "used" any benefits I wouldn't get a refund. I've used Prime Video and the shipping. Pretty sure I wouldn't get anything.

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

#326

Post by Beldin »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #225
geraldwhen wrote: post #88

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…

> Huge mistake: they should have wildly increased enforcement

They did. However, it turns out that often, you're suing upstanding citizens for what the public views as minor infractions. This does not really recoup costs. It does act as a deterrent, both for Joey Public to illegally download your content, but also for them to spend money on acquiring your content legally. For some reason, the big fish are hard to catch, and catching one doesn't move the needle on illegally downloaded content much.

Moreover, they're not just competing with illegally downloaded content. Disney's back catalogue has been sold for literally decades. I bet that before the era of streaming, most folks lived within 10 houses of a legal, viewable copy of Disney's big hits (Lion King, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, etc). And if not, physical media of such movies and series are typically available on 2nd-hand markets for very affordable prices*. That's what the back catalogue of Disney (and others) needs to compete with first and foremost.

* case in point: I bought a 7 season, 24ish episode/season series on Ebay for 50. Watching it with the envisioned company (ie. no binging) took months; streaming would have been more expensive already at 5 bucks per month.

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

#327

Post by harimau777 »

tom_walters wrote: post #29

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…

I think that part of the problem might be that streaming no longer reliably supplies the old classics. I would likely pay for a service where when someone says "You haven't seen X? It's a classic!" I could reliably watch it. However, in practice the classics are spread across so many different services that none of them are worth subscribing to.

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

#328

Post by harimau777 »

lolinder wrote: post #238
Solvency wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true for all kids? I thought popular opinion was that all new gen kids have insatiable content appetites with low attention spans demanding constant newness?

If you feed them a constant stream of new content, yeah, they'll probably be that way, but they're not born with an insatiable desire for novel consumption.

I think it depends on the person. Other than a few favorites, I've never tended to rewatch movies, reread books, replay games, etc. I think that a lot of it may be that a lot of the appeal to me is in "figuring out" the content so that once I know how things play out I don't care all that much about reexperiencing the playing out itself.

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

#329

Post by harimau777 »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #293
jMyles wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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, va…

The truth is kids are resiliant and not stupid. generations "survived" these types of stereotypes and in 20 years someone else will be wringing their hands about the misguided stereotypes the current crop of acceptable movies is involved in (including everything you listed as a positive). I would never hesitate to allow a child to watch any disney movie, but I definitely would hesitate to allow a child to watch Berse…

I'm not sure it's a fair to compare your average Disney movie to famously transgressive/extreme examples of anime like Berserk or Elfin Lied. That would be like comparing One Piece to something like Watership Down.

For every Berserk or Elfin Lied there's a Bocchi the Rock! or Spy Family.

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