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Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

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Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#31

Post by khazhoux »

aidenn0 wrote: post #4
c3534l wrote: post #2

This feels... grotesque? The free market is meant to ensure that competitors lower their prices to compete with Disney+. If instead corporations raise prices to compete with... profits over marketshare, then it feels like something has gone terribly wrong.

You mean like Disney having a government enforced monopoly on their content that lasts for about a century, combined with changes in technology w.r.t streaming that allow them to never create a "first sale" and thus make it illegal for anybody to possess a copy of their content without paying them a monthly fee that they get to set?

I must be the only one that is not bothered by Disney having a permanent monopoly over Disney characters. They created the characters, they nurtured them, and they maintain their image to this day and this is their business. I am not at all compelled by someone who feels it’s now right, because Mickey is part of American culture, to make their own commercial products with that IP.

Design your own damn characters.

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#32

Post by dmix »

nicoburns wrote: post #19
bdw5204 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever there's something that looks like a market failure, there's almost always a governmental grant of monopoly privilege or some government regulation to prevent competition. Why are prescription drugs unaffordable? Because of a grant of monopoly privilege called "patents" that allow a company to monopolize a drug for around 2 decades. Why is health care so expensive? Because the government subsidizes employer p…

While this can be the case, numerous of the examples you have given (medical costs and the labor market to name two) have fewer problems in countries with much stronger government intervention/regulation. If your government creates poor regulations then maybe that should be tackled directly (by electing less incompetent/corrupt officials) rather than concluding that regulation itself is bad.

Most of those countries such as Canada made certain markets like health insurance public, where it was deemed for the publics benefit not to be run for profit as there's far too many externalities and moral issues. We made the same choice with police and public attorneys. Sometimes, in very rare cases usually invoking peoples health and safety, it makes sense for it to be public.

What doesn't make sense to me is that massive meddling western governments do to prop up these monopolies. Copyright is a perfect example. Or just look a Boeing in 2024 or many Wall St orgs after 2008, special treatment and artificial barriers to completion is a huge and ever growing problem.

And these debates always just dismissed and downplayed because all context gets thrown out and it turns into vague gov regulations vs markets fights, as we see here in this thread.

The cyberpunk future of megacorps ruling the planet will be the result of gov interference in the vast majority of cases. And only a small amount due to lack of any monopoly antitrust enforcement. But both have the same root cause of forever expanding gov technocracy->megacorps define the rules and buy politicians->no one wins.

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#33

Post by hedora »

Since the article doesn’t break this out, revenue for that quarter was $2.4b, and pre tax income was 0.6b:

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2024/05/q2-fy24...

So, the streaming service (which is largely back-catalog?) seems to be subsidizing other stuff. I’d hope that most of the $2.4b is going into new content / artists, but I’m guessing it is not.

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#34

Post by stubish »

gamblor956 wrote: post #14
aidenn0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like Disney having a government enforced monopoly on their content that lasts for about a century, combined with changes in technology w.r.t streaming that allow them to never create a "first sale" and thus make it illegal for anybody to possess a copy of their content without paying them a monthly fee that they get to set?

You could also just...not watch it. You don't have a right to consume someone else's creations just because you want to.

No, you can't not watch it.

Popular media becomes part of popular culture. Your culture, my culture. It surrounds us and affects us, no matter our choice and even before we are of an age we can legally make such decisions. Mickey Mouse is in your head, and Disney controls Mickey Mouse, so Disney controls a part of you. Owns a part of you. A part that you need to keep locked away and only used with permission, because that T-shirt that makes you feel happy for no good reason needs to be blurred out when filmed to avoid a court case. And Gen X is still pissed about it because Han shooting first is part of their identity.

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#35

Post by saurik »

khazhoux wrote: post #31
aidenn0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like Disney having a government enforced monopoly on their content that lasts for about a century, combined with changes in technology w.r.t streaming that allow them to never create a "first sale" and thus make it illegal for anybody to possess a copy of their content without paying them a monthly fee that they get to set?

I must be the only one that is not bothered by Disney having a permanent monopoly over Disney characters. They created the characters, they nurtured them, and they maintain their image to this day and this is their business. I am not at all compelled by someone who feels it’s now right, because Mickey is part of American culture, to make their own commercial products with that IP. Design your own damn characters.

To checksum, do you also believe that The Little Mermaid should still belong to Hans Christian Anderson?

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#36

Post by [deleted] »

gamblor956 wrote: post #14
aidenn0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like Disney having a government enforced monopoly on their content that lasts for about a century, combined with changes in technology w.r.t streaming that allow them to never create a "first sale" and thus make it illegal for anybody to possess a copy of their content without paying them a monthly fee that they get to set?

You could also just...not watch it. You don't have a right to consume someone else's creations just because you want to.

[deleted]

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#37

Post by mjklin »

teruakohatu wrote: post #21

Like Hollywood I expect Disney accounting to be a lot of smoke and mirrors. Disney has a massive back catalog, the oldest movie on the platform is nearly 90 years old. I am sure Disney is renting Disney+ ancient content at premium market rates and so the platform appears to be unprofitable.

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

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#38

Post by pclmulqdq »

hedora wrote: post #33

Since the article doesn’t break this out, revenue for that quarter was $2.4b, and pre tax income was 0.6b: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2024/05/q2-fy24... So, the streaming service (which is largely back-catalog?) seems to be subsidizing other stuff. I’d hope that most of the $2.4b is going into new content / artists, but I’m guessing it is not.

Lots of things happen between revenue and pre-tax income that aren't "subsidizing other stuff."

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#39

Post by stubish »

hiddencost wrote: post #18
c3534l wrote: post #2

This feels... grotesque? The free market is meant to ensure that competitors lower their prices to compete with Disney+. If instead corporations raise prices to compete with... profits over marketshare, then it feels like something has gone terribly wrong.

Meant to? By whom? Who makes sure the system operates that way?

A free market just works this way, and various regulations exist to keep it a free market by stopping things like collusion, corruption, fraud and monopolies. However, in order to protect creators rights, other regulations we call copyright grant monopolies. So the 'free market' is not really a free market. An actual free market per your economics text book is a rare thing.

Re: Leaked Disney+ financials may shed light on recent price hike

#40

Post by khazhoux »

saurik wrote: post #35
khazhoux wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be the only one that is not bothered by Disney having a permanent monopoly over Disney characters. They created the characters, they nurtured them, and they maintain their image to this day and this is their business. I am not at all compelled by someone who feels it’s now right, because Mickey is part of American culture, to make their own commercial products with that IP. Design your own damn characters.

To checksum, do you also believe that The Little Mermaid should still belong to Hans Christian Anderson?

No, and Mickey does not belong to Walt Disney either.

If Hans had created a business that sustained to this day, then that would be different situation.

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