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Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

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Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#921
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is `while profitable(): make_sequel()` which _always_ ends with shitty content and incomplete stories.

What you're describing is more of an American television problem. The Simpsons, The Office, Game of Thrones, etc. all managed to go on too long without the help of Netflix.

Game of thrones problem wasnt going on too long quite the opposite. The show runners were assholes to the author of the books their show was based on and he wouldn't work with them anymore then when they got an offer from Disney they decided to cut the show short and finish it one season and cut major character development to get to the pre determined ending resulting in people having sudden character changes or clever characters start carrying the idot ball.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#923

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) steel and rail are important for survival, and actual monopolies that result you being only able to get a necessary good or service from 1 seller 2) there are a billion different ways to entertain yourself, including spending time on HN. It matters very little to real life that there are 5 different places to stream expensive media compared to 6. If they get too expensive, you can watch youtube or tiktok or come b…

The pro-monopoly stance never ceases to amaze me. Competition is good, apparently, but multi-hundred-billion-dollar mergers are... also good? Make it make sense.

If you comprehend #2, you can see that it is not a pro monopoly stance.

Additionally, an anti monopoly stance for the purposes of buying a specific piece of content would be reducing copyright to 10 years.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#924

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I torrent too, but I think it makes sense to buy/rent or sub to a service in many cases. Companies look at views and revenue to decide what content to actually make. So, especially for ongoing series that I'm enjoying I want them to keep renewing it. I subscribe to ad-free versions of services so I don't really run into ads a lot unless I'm trying to watch something live on TV.

How did good movies and TV shows get made before the panopticon? How did we get Casa Blanca when there were no Nielsen ratings?

It was real for the actors, som ehad really fled the Nazis (including the ones playing the Nazis).

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#925
My wife and I have been so fed up with the streaming landscape that we’ve been amassing a library of physical Blu-rays on the cheap from places like McKay’s, etc. It takes a little work, but it’s been really good for our family and encourages us to be thoughtful about what we consume.

Honestly I don’t see us going back to streaming. The content isn’t that compelling; most of what we watch is older (we have kids, so lots of Disney movies), and we’re not really interested in most of the newer shows that would warrant us paying a subscription in order to watch new episodes as they drop. Before we cancelled, I remember looking at the carousel on my Netflix Home Screen and being completely uninterested in any of the content they were pushing.

I’m also not worried about some licensing deal nuking one of my kids’ favorite movies from the catalog now. No ads is just the cherry on top.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#926
Netflix now owns that right to many major media franchises, including:

* The DC Universe (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.)

* Game of Thrones

* Hanna-Barbera (The Flinstones, The Smurfs, etc.)

* Harry Potter

* Looney Tunes ( Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.)

* Scooby-Doo

* Tom and Jerry

* The Big Bang Theory

* The Sopranos

* The Wizard of Oz

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#927
post #678

The reaction here is interesting. I thought this is what people wanted, a consolidation of all the streaming services into one so you did not have to subscribe to 10 different ones. I personally think it's a bad idea, but people need to figure out exactly what they want.

I don't think many people want one monolith to own all content, what they want is an easy way to watch content from multiple different content owners without having to juggle subscriptions. music does this far better, there's multiple different platforms that all have the vast majority of music people care about, you can easily opt to rent with streaming or purchase outright and download without DRM. spotify would pr…

People want stuff for cheaper has and will always be true.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#928
post #538
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you think Apple is treating Netflix bad? No no no. Netflix refuses to play game, because they want to keep their data to themselves. Apple would LOVE Netflix to integrate into the app.

And quite rightly so. Why would Netflix let Apple list all their content in an Apple branded interface as if it were their own?

Because it makes a potential customer's life more inconvenient, so the customer has incentive to not buy Netflix. For example, me. The only reason I have for not buying Netflix is this little thing.

Also,

> Why would Netflix let Apple list all their content in an Apple branded interface as if it were their own

That's not how it works. It literally says "Open in Netflix" or whatever app. All it does is make it easy to search for stuff, add it to your watchlist, and start playing it.

What Netflix doesn't like is that it makes it easier for its customers to watch non Netflix content...which is obviously anti customer.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#929

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.)

Isn’t that mixing up library size with market power?

Consumers are going to pay for this consolidation through higher subscription prices because the cost always goes somewhere.

What you’re seeing now is the same consolidation and ad loading that drove the old piracy waves.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#930
post #76

This deal is an indicator of huge changes in global film & TV production. Hollywood's struggles amplified after the writer's strike with a perfect storm of issues around unionisation, technology, fragmenting audiences, new formats, asset liabilities and enormous competition to the east. Now LA soundstages are empty while production centres in Europe, UK, India, China, Nigeria are booming and vast new studios cropping…

If we start with admitting some level of consolidation is inevitable, I don't see much of an alternative to what is happening. I would think a merger with another similar studio could be similar to KMart merging with Sears, two companies with the same downsides. While Netflix will be the biggest game in town for streaming, that landscape will still have plenty of competition if you compare it to say, telecom providers or ISPs.
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