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Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#661

So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.

Disagree. Government oversight is usually never the correct answer. The simplest solution to this is through consumer choice. Simply pirate the content you want. If corporations don't want to lose money to piracy then they'll learn to stop doing anti-consumer behavior.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#662
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it isn't. It's a workaround. Sure, but it's a trivially easy workaround. Our focus of attention on matters of regulation ought to be in those areas where working around the problem is not nearly as dead simple as a torrent client, a NAS, and a Plex server.

It's really not. I'm a computer geek, and I'm LONG past the point where setting up safe VMs and signing up to half a dozen services like newsgroup server and directories and search engines and what nots, download software with impossible names like sabnzbd (I'm waiting up for somebody to scream how nobody uses sabnzbd anymore, it's been replaced by jidwiaj and iqerqip, which are super easy, and that just proves my po…

My father-in-law has no idea about technology, yet tells me I'm dumb for paying for things like netflix when he just downloads them

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many ways, Capitalism is fueled by greed.

That’s the genius of it. Why fight human nature? As parent said, corporations are restricted only by the market and by the legal system, so it’s up to the voters to implement effective taxes and rules as needed

'voters' in America = gerrymandered district super pac funded politicians

The actual people have no say whatsoever.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our whole family has been doing that this year. Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around. This was tougher growing up when kids all watched the same shows and talked about them, but with content so all over the place now that common thread seems to be mostly gone at school (outside of internet video stuff).

> Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around. My girlfriend somehow grew up completely unaware of Star Trek, so I introduced her to The Next Generation last year and we've been watching it (rewatching in my case, but for the first time in over two decades) one episode a day. It's so relaxing, in a way that almost no modern TV is. No end-of-episode cliffhangers or other mechanisms trying to ma…

> No end-of-episode cliffhangers

Well, except for the season finale/openers from Season 3 on; but, yes, TV in general (even before streaming, DS9-VOY-ENT all show this trend within thr Trek franchise) has become less episodic since the TNG era.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#665

I wish people didn't watch so much television. It's too good and too easy to watch an unlimited amount of content. Every hour you spend being entertained in front of your screens is an hour less you could be spending building actual social bonds with people in your community. There is a correlation to increasing tv watching and decreased social club engagement. By social clubs I mean bowling clubs, skating clubs, 4H…

I have some pretty bad internet addiction too. It was so bad I basically stopped playing guitar in my teen years. I restarted last year and had to basically start from scratch, it was so depressing. I used to be able to sight read sheet music, then I threw a budding life skill all away to look at memes I will never remember or play some dumb quest in a game.

I was addicted really to consumption. I stopped creating. Now I'm trying to make more time for it. The other night I fell asleep on the couch before midnight with my guitar in my hand and my fingers forming a chord, rather than being wired and awake on reddit until I look and notice it's 2am again. Still, the sting of knowing I squandered probably 10 years of youth just consuming junk is a lot to bear.

It's depressing knowing some very smart people are out there striving as hard as they can to get me and others away from looking inwardly and creating, or at least investing focus in one's own life and building yourself up, and instead hooked on the teet of endless content. It's like the end game with this endless consumption is The Matrix, where most of humanity is just plugged into the machine sitting there, thoughtless, sucking on the feeding tube and fueling the robots until they eventually die and are replaced by another warm body.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#666

The meaninglessness of $8.45b relative to amazon's scale is mind boggling. It represents 0.5% of their market cap, 20% of their cash-on-hand, nevermind their borrowing capacity @ near 0%. If a problem is worth the Jeff/Andy's personal attention, it's worth spending $8bn on. I'm a broken record but, current equity prices and financial climate generally makes massive consolidation very likely. Antitrust, or fear of is…

>The price is about 37 times MGM’s 2021 estimated EBITDA - or almost triple the enterprise value-to-EBITDA multiple that Discovery’s deal implied for AT&T’s content assets - according to Reuters Breakingviews.

Was there another offer for slightly less than $8.45B? What kind of thinking would lead them to that figure, rather than a different one?

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the genius of it. Why fight human nature? As parent said, corporations are restricted only by the market and by the legal system, so it’s up to the voters to implement effective taxes and rules as needed

'voters' in America = gerrymandered district super pac funded politicians The actual people have no say whatsoever.

I wouldn’t agree with “no say whatsoever” but of course constant reform is needed in any society.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, sure. In real business culture, there is an imputis (especially for tech companies) to "maKe money work." If their best investment is other companies' bonds, they should (again, in theory) just return cash to investors who can buy the bonds themselves. More importantly, The ability to reinvest profitably is a sign of horizon, at least traditionally. I stress "in theory," because theory is a long way from p…

> If their best investment is other companies' bonds, they should (again, in theory) just return cash to investors who can buy the bonds themselves. This is what they're effectively doing, in practice. AAPL has conducted ~$500B in share buybacks since the commencement of their buyback program in 2013. Their current cash and cash equivalents sits at ~$200B. So, one could say that of the $700B AAPl could have returned…

I'm not sure we should accept "returned to shareholders" at face value.

Nothing is really returned to shareholders. Shareholders own that money (as they own all Apple's assets) before the buyback. After the buyback, they no longer own the money... but share value has (in theory) not changed because it now represents a larger portion of this smaller asset.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever, there is too little of sci-fi anyway. Having already watched everything many times, I feel suffocating.

What do you recommend? Loved Star Trek Discovery, The Expanse, Travelers, Lost

I dunno, all these you listed are pretty unique.

Babylon 5, Stargate: Universe, Colony, Aftermath, Continuum may seem have something in common with these roughly.

My memory also isn't very active. I would immediately recall the show you would name but I can't just list them. I have even forgotten about existence of the Westworld show although I enjoyed it and can probably tell what's next at any given moment of it.

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