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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

#261
The current top post is begging people to use Firefox to have more diversity in the browser landscape while everyone here complaining about the diversi... ehem, proliferation of streaming platforms.

Is there an economic or psychological principle that explains this? Something like "people want lots of free choices but only one paid option". (On further thought, this might just be an implication of the trivial "people want to spend less".)

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to compare any growth against a benchmark index which reflects what would’ve happened if the company had simply invested its assets in that index fund instead.

That's nonsensical when they are part of the index driving that growth.

That’s right, e.g. you can’t really choose SPX for any of the top 10 members (AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, NVDA, GOOGL, META, GOOG, TSLA, BRK/B, JPM) but after that it trails off pretty quickly.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where was unsupervised consumption mentioned? Quit your pearl clutching.

I think you've misread my comment and OP's comment here

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

#264
The stats for watched shows are pretty interesting - https://fortune.com/2023/06/29/netflix-amazon-disney-others-...

Nothing prestige, almost entirely NFLX. A lot of it is back catalog licensed stuff. NCIS, Criminal minds, lol. Disney+ on the scoreboard with basically a couple kids shows plus the Simpsons.

Previous year stats pretty similar - https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2022/streaming-grew-its-aud...

Prestige stuff like Game of Thrones, Succession, even each of the Disney+ Star Wars shows is $100M/season. None of these make the scoreboard for views.

Meanwhile most people are watching boomer reruns and midbrow stuff. Even Seinfeld licensing only cost $100M/year for NFLX to end up one of the top 10 viewed shows.

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix streaming looks worst on my 150" screen. Some shows are watchables but some are simply junk bitrate wise to the point I get huge posterisation effects/pixels. The quality of the content itself is another issue. For movies I just get the disk and store it forever with r.volution NAS(aka old zappiti NAS)

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?

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

#266
post #261

The current top post is begging people to use Firefox to have more diversity in the browser landscape while everyone here complaining about the diversi... ehem, proliferation of streaming platforms. Is there an economic or psychological principle that explains this? Something like "people want lots of free choices but only one paid option". (On further thought, this might just be an implication of the trivial "people…

People want a single global pool of content they can access but many options for how they access that content.

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

#267
post #64

Streaming has become the new cable: a bunch of piecemeal services with mostly terrible content and a few gems each, with their own pricing plans and ad models. I have no interest in subscribing to all of them or even most of them. There's just too much junk, too many different subscriptions to monitor, and too much deception in their ad models (if I pay for "no ads" and see a 30 second unskippable ad for the service'…

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 a rerun, or plan ahead by recording it with a DVR, or by using some other subpar workaround with high friction. The show you care about runs at an inconvenient time slot for your schedule? Too bad. Want to watch with subs instead of a dub? Too bad.

I can keep going with that list even further, but I think the point I am making is pretty clear already. Makes me often wonder what people clamoring for the “good old days of cable” are actually smoking.

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

#268

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…

It’s funny how crap the other streamers apps still are compared to Netflix. Little things matter. Netflix always picks up the exact second you left a show. Apple, Disney and prime sometimes jump back 5 minutes or even more. Netflix app opens super fast even in my crap old smart TV. Apple, Disney, prime take ages. Even when open the UI is very sloppy. Netflix adjusts the streaming quality depending on your connection.…

Netflix buffers more for me and quality is awful for up to 20 seconds, I like the small jump back on Disney+ when resuming

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

#269

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…

Everybody wanted to control the entire pie, when in reality almost all of them would have been better off just licensing their content to Netflix and not worrying about streaming distribution

Completely agree, but they never seem to learn.

The plumbing companies (like Netflix) look jealously at the content producers, and they desperately want that sweet content revenue.

The content producers (like Disney) look jealously at the plumbing companies, and they desperately want that sweet plumbing revenue.

Sometimes grabbing for the other revenue stream works out (like for Netflix) but most of the time it doesn't.

Disney was so eager to get into the plumbing business that it forgot how to create compelling content and now it can't do either.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the age of the kids—for the price of a Disney+ subscription you can buy ~2 DVDs a month, which at my kid's age (4 and 2) is way more frequently than they actually want to watch new movies. When I was a kid, (and I'm seeing it with my own kids) we had a tiny selection of movies that we loved to watch repeatedly. Why pay rent for that selection when you could own it for the same price?

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?

I imagine this greatly depends on the age of the kids and their immediate friend groups. A very young child generally isn't going to care or even understand some movie or show is old or not, everything in life is new to them.
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