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Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

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Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#881

Post by nrhrjrjrjtntbt »

nonethewiser wrote: post #315
afavour wrote: post #182

Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this merger gets approved, in the current administration you never know). From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix…

> Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers This is a very common narrative to this news. But coming into this news, I think the most common narrative against streaming was essentially "There is not enough consolidation." People were happy when Netflix was the streaming service, but then everyone pulled their content and have their own (Disney, Paramount, etc.)

I dont mind disconsolidation. The main downside is price as you have to pay for multiple services. Having all the services is "the one service".

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#882

Post by triketazone »

AI TL;DR of 500 Hacker News Comments Mostly complainers. A few useful nuggets. Useful:

Music streaming has universal catalogs; video doesn't. That's why one works and the other feels broken. Blu-rays keep working. Streaming licenses don't. WB has been cursed—AOL, AT&T, Discovery all saddled it with debt. Pattern worth noting. HBO is nearly impossible to access legally outside the US. Real issue.

Noise:

"Enshittification" with no specifics Piracy boasting Subjective quality debates Anti-trust speculation from non-lawyers Cable nostalgia

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#883

Post by lofaszvanitt »

issafram wrote: post #814
somehnguy wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usenet + the *arr stack + Plex or Jellyfin make it completely effortless to watch any movie or TV show I can think of. And I don't have to play the 'which service has this?' game.

If only there was an easy setup/tutorial for Usenet. I have no idea what I am supposed to pay for and what client program to use for acquiring files.

PAR2 files have their beauty

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#884

Post by chipotle_coyote »

nemomarx wrote: post #572
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right, but I've always been a bit skeptical of that vision -- it implicitly relies on the assumption that "THE streaming service" will choose to make as much content available as technically and legally possible; they're imagining something like "Spotify but for movies and TV shows". But I was always worried about "Apple's App Store but for movies and TV shows": one company with ultimate gatekeeper sta…

I think ideally you'd have 2-3 streaming services that all have all the content without exclusives? (So the spotify of movies and tv, the tidal of movies and tv, the bandcamp of movies and tv...)

That would be ideal. It's my (very limited) understanding that the costs of making television and movies makes that kind of scenario unlikely, though.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#885

Post by baby »

thayne wrote: post #514
nonethewiser wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers This is a very common narrative to this news. But coming into this news, I think the most common narrative against streaming was essentially "There is not enough consolidation." People were happy when Netflix was the streaming service, but then everyone pulled their content and have their own (Disney, Paramount, etc.)

I want a separation between the streaming platform companies and the content making companies, so that the streaming companies can compete on making a better platform/service and the content companies compete on making better content. I don't want one company that owns everything, I want several companies that are able to license whatever content they want. And ideally the customer can choose between a subscription t…

You can have one middle man platform to stream everything but competition to get good movies to that platform, it's a shame that we have so many platforms now

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#886

Post by awongh »

shufflerofrocks wrote: post #247
awongh wrote: post #223

In terms of people who actually like movies and music it’s not a great time. Unfortunately it’s pretty clear that the true business model of music and content streamers is about “putting something on in the background” and not actually about the quality level of the content. Thus you get inoffensive cheap netflix series and AI generated chill beats to study to, and no one really notices as long as it’s above a certai…

My blood always boils a little whenever I read about Netflix's "Not second-screen enough" business model. What shitty point we've enshittified to, where we prioritise passive slop consumption over active enriching one. All of this is a result of the algorithmic media addiction people have been engineered into, in my opinion. Every moment you're not consuming something is a moment you're wasting, and a moment you have…

To be fair people used to have their tv (or even radio) on all the time.

I’m not sure this is that much different. If anything the quality has gone up in the sense that maybe you have a bit more choice about what you put on in the background

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#887

Post by issafram »

tills13 wrote: post #867
issafram wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there was an easy setup/tutorial for Usenet. I have no idea what I am supposed to pay for and what client program to use for acquiring files.

Having figured it out myself, I agree. And it's not obvious that you need both a Usenet _indexer_ (who tells you what content is available) and a Usenet provider (who actually serves you the content). FWIW, and I'm not sure if this is against terms here, but I use newsgeek for the former and giganews for the latter. Both are paid services but reasonably priced imo. When I can find something on Usenet, it typically do…

Are the downloads through http/tcp or some other protocol?

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#888

Post by rtpg »

djtango wrote: post #81
srameshc wrote: post #39

I never imagined that a service that ships DVD via mail would one day buy Warner Brothers. It is amazing how innovation and focus can change the game. Someday a new startup will piggy bank on Netflix and probably buy it later.

More like how did these companies drop the ball so bad. Most notably Sony which produced TVs, Computers, DVD players, Media Centers. They owned a movie studio and record label. They also have in house expertise with cloud content distribution via PlayStation. Unfortunately for them around the time of Netflix's ascent they were embroiled with all kinds of financial issues but still the mind boggles

Sony still makes TV they get to sell to the highest bidder! They get to sell to Apple TV or Netflix.

Not recurring revenue but they have their thing set up

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#889

Post by dvntsemicolon »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #341

I cancelled all my content subscriptions and I'm back to torrenting. I barely watch anything made my Netflix regardless. I think either Dark or the 3rd season of Stranger Things was the last time. Snyder's SciFi movie wasn't much good either. By now the streaming services are en route to become as terrible as whatever they were set out to replace. Once one of them started heavily advertising their own productions eve…

I'm using Stremio + Torrentio + Real-Debrid now that I have money to actually pay for it.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#890

Post by swisniewski »

afavour wrote: post #182

Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this merger gets approved, in the current administration you never know). From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix…

Generally with large acquisitions, product integration tends to precede infrastructure integration by years to decades.

Look at GitHub as an example, they were acquired in 2018, and are just migrating to Azure now after 7 years.

Microsoft shipping integrations with GitHub in 20108.

This is definitely the case with several Salesforce acquisitions (early product integration, little, no, or much later infrastructure integration).

So… I predict some level of content integration within a few months.

But infra integration is likely years away.

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