Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox • Hacker News Board

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#281

Post by morley » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 7:28 PM UTC

adamlett wrote: post #267

aqme28 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Netflix approaching monopoly? If anything I've seen a ton of competition coming up from the likes of Amazon, HBO, and a billion smaller services.

Netflix is on the trajectory to becoming a monopoly, yes. HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market. They will keep making money hand over fist from cable tv until suddenly they don’t. If Netflix is Google, HBO is Yahoo. Amazon in this analogy, of course would be Bing. At a glance they seem to have what is required to…

> HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US

I'm not sure this is true. HBO Go is available for subscription in the US, is available on many streaming platforms. Additionally, you can subscribe to HBO through Amazon Prime (among other places; I just happen to use the Prime subscription). I can't comment on differences in marketing spend or consumer goodwill, but from my perspective, I see the same level of service between HBO and Netflix (though admittedly, Netflix is usually more stable).

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#282

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 7:34 PM UTC

adamlett wrote: post #267

aqme28 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Netflix approaching monopoly? If anything I've seen a ton of competition coming up from the likes of Amazon, HBO, and a billion smaller services.

Netflix is on the trajectory to becoming a monopoly, yes. HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market. They will keep making money hand over fist from cable tv until suddenly they don’t. If Netflix is Google, HBO is Yahoo. Amazon in this analogy, of course would be Bing. At a glance they seem to have what is required to…

In this analogy, who is Duck Duck Go?

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#283

Post by jogjayr » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 7:40 PM UTC

adamlett wrote: post #267

aqme28 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Netflix approaching monopoly? If anything I've seen a ton of competition coming up from the likes of Amazon, HBO, and a billion smaller services.

Netflix is on the trajectory to becoming a monopoly, yes. HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market. They will keep making money hand over fist from cable tv until suddenly they don’t. If Netflix is Google, HBO is Yahoo. Amazon in this analogy, of course would be Bing. At a glance they seem to have what is required to…

> HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market.

HBO's library is far smaller than Netflix's (though average quality of titles is higher). Their streaming service is also objectively terrible: slow, unreliable, bad UX. On top of that it's 50% more expensive than Netflix. I'm not sure it's just the lucrative TV deals keeping them from competing with Netflix in streaming.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#284

Post by basch » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 8:02 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #85

exelius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is only interested in the creative/film assets; broadcast distribution and news/sports are being spun off.

The "big five" studios decreasing to the "big four" is not a good thing either. I feel like people have decided that because they really want an Avengers/X-Men movie (I want one too), it's okay that one of the largest companies on the planet is buying out one of their largest competitors.

Fox was for sale. Either Disney or Comcast was going to end up with it.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#285

Post by euyyn » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 8:02 PM UTC

jogjayr wrote: post #283

adamlett wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is on the trajectory to becoming a monopoly, yes. HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market. They will keep making money hand over fist from cable tv until suddenly they don’t. If Netflix is Google, HBO is Yahoo. Amazon in this analogy, of course would be Bing. At a glance they seem to have what is required to…

> HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market. HBO's library is far smaller than Netflix's (though average quality of titles is higher). Their streaming service is also objectively terrible: slow, unreliable, bad UX. On top of that it's 50% more expensive than Netflix. I'm not sure it's just the lucrative TV deals keepin…

I remember that watching the same HBO episode via Amazon was flawless while via HBO's website it was often buffering.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#286

Post by basch » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 8:04 PM UTC

pinebox wrote: post #37

coldcode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox continues to own News and Sports. However rumors are that Murdoch may also be shopping other parts of what remains. Disney gets Movies including Avatar and XMen, etc, 300 other channels, production studios, controlling stake in Hulu and for some bizarre historical reason, now own the rights to Star Wars IV, A New Hope.

> and for some bizarre historical reason, now own the rights to Star Wars IV, A New Hope These were distribution rights, some of which were going to expire in 2020 anyway.[1] So now we may finally get some official unspecialized Star Wars. [1]: http://www.slashfilm.com/20th-century-fox-still-owns-rights-...

no, Fox OWNED A New Hope, and it says so in the article you posted

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#287

Post by johnthom612 » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 8:06 PM UTC

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Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#288

Post by euyyn » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 8:08 PM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #34

werdnapk wrote: post #9

So along with Disney pulling all their titles from Netflix for their own streaming service, I guess the FX content will be next to go from Netflix.

How is it that this is so much less anti-competitive than bundling an OS with a web browser?

Because Microsoft also strong-armed PC manufacturers into not adding Netscape to the computers they sold, for the sole recognized purpose of protecting the Win32 API barrier of entry into the OS business.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#289

Post by nickik » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 8:28 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #274

nickik wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its simply false that market freedom always leads to consolidation. There is a very complex interplay between transaction cost, information problems, scaling economics and so on. You are just throwing out populist phrases because they sound good. The solution is not to declare some kind of neo-progressive trust busting but locking at individual industries and figuring out why they are consolidating and if it will be…

I'm oversimplifying, but I'm not "throwing out populist phrases because they sound good." Be careful not to conflate your reaction and my intention. I agree that intellectual property needs reform, but that's a separate issue.

No. Intellectual property is the real issue here because this is what allows Disney to do these things.

Whatever your intention you used a populist argument that anti-market people have used for 100s of years, and given that there huge numbers of companies still in existence that argument should have been disqualified by now.

Just stopping a merger does not change the underlying structure and will accomplish little.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#290

Post by sacheendra » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 8:32 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #282

adamlett wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is on the trajectory to becoming a monopoly, yes. HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market. They will keep making money hand over fist from cable tv until suddenly they don’t. If Netflix is Google, HBO is Yahoo. Amazon in this analogy, of course would be Bing. At a glance they seem to have what is required to…

In this analogy, who is Duck Duck Go?

Hulu?