There is more competition than ever. That is why these legacy companies are being bought and sold.
Amazon/Apple/Comcast/Disney/Netflix/Oracle are all in the business of selling video, plus they are competing for attention with Youtube/Tiktok/Reddit/HN/etc.
There is also Sony and Lionsgate and A24 not selling direct to customers.
> And Netflix has 13,000 employees, while Disney has 233,000.
And Disney is significantly more than just a single streaming service struggling to get content.
Their Direct-to-Consumer business (aka Netflix equivalent) posted a net profit increase 9.5x year on year (from 143 million to 1.3 billion) and has more than half the number of Netflix subscribers (196 million vs. 300+ million) in significantly shorter time than Netflix. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/the-walt-disney-company-rep...
Operating profit, not net profit. Net income (or profit or earnings) can only be calculated for the whole business.
> has more than half the number of Netflix subscribers (196 million vs. 300+ million) in significantly shorter time than Netflix.
I don’t find this impressive. Streaming has been the future for over a decade, and Disney has long had more, and more popular content than Netflix. So why is it taking them so long to catch up to Netflix? They should have surpassed Netflix a long time ago.
> Streaming has been the future for over a decade, and Disney has long had more, and more popular content than Netflix. So why is it taking them so long to catch up to Netflix?
Netflix started streaming 18 years ago. Disney+ appeared 6 years ago, and Disney didn't acquire Hulu (as part of 20th Century Fox) until 2019. Also, Disney+ appeared in the era of multiple streaming services, and IIRC didn't pull their content from Netflix until sometime after they launched Disney+. Netflix also didn't lose content from other big content distributors like WB until later.
To compare: in near-absence of any competition it took Netflix until 2021 (10 years) to reach 200 million subscribers. There's Hulu that was launched in 2007, but they were nearly absent outside of the US.
So Disney has streaming competition on all fronts, has gone through price increases etc., and still grows their streaming service.
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Netflix buying WB is not really a desperation move, but it is a question of survival. Netflix has very little content of its own, and has trouble licensing relevant content from studios that are now its direct rivals: Disney, WB, Paramount etc.
They were all happily presented on Netflix, and then pulled nearly all their content to launch their own streaming platforms.
Netflix has survived by dumping enormous amounts of money into producing their own content, and licensing foreign content. But that is clearly not enough to maintain momentum, or to keep subscribers interested in the service. With WB they get their hands on a lot of IP that they can inject back into the service.
To me it died when they changed acceptable series length to 6 episodes on GoT. I really miss the days of 24 episodes, split into 12 episodes runs. I dont care that you spent the income of a small nation on the 6 episodes, I prefer you spread that money on 12 or more episodes so we can get story telling again.
Today's "TV shows" are more like TV movies that where split in into 3 1 hour runs.
> And the vast majority of that vast majority’s lives in the US work out, you know, fine—mostly including things like climate-controlled indoor spaces, ample calories,
I’ll buy this
>professional medical care, access to some kind of justice system,
I doubt this. Most people in the US are probably aware one healthcare or legal issue in their family will derail the whole family’s future.
That is not to say things are worse than before. But humans view the world in relative terms, and they seem to expect more than reality can offer. And whereas before there was ignorance, today, there is widespread knowledge and visibility into the gulf between the have nots, the haves, and the have even mores.
> Most people in the US are probably aware one healthcare or legal issue in their family will derail the whole family’s future.
Healthcare sure, but for Americans, it is culturally and institutionally seen as a core part of justice that the guilty have their future destroyed. That it affects those dependent on the guilty is a part of that destruction, it's trying to isolate them from others. If you still have your family around, has your life truly been destroyed? Among American people it might not be universal, and may seem absolutely barbaric, but the extreme malignance of American justice is more or less consistent with a wide swath of attitudes Americans have, especially when they're the ones who have been severely harmed.
I don’t think the ADA allows charging people with disabilities extra. For example, if you claim you have a service dog, then you are legally not allowed to be charged pet fees.
That is because time and energy are limited resources, and measuring merit accurately is very costly. Measuring appearance is far less costly, and might serve as an acceptable proxy. And often times it might not.
Amazon/Apple/Comcast/Disney/Netflix/Oracle are all in the business of selling video, plus they are competing for attention with Youtube/Tiktok/Reddit/HN/etc.
There is also Sony and Lionsgate and A24 not selling direct to customers.
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