[HN Gopher] Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros
___________________________________________________________________
Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros
Author : meetpateltech
Score : 1324 points
Date : 2025-12-05 12:21 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (about.netflix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (about.netflix.com)
| GaryBluto wrote:
| I wonder if an antitrust suit will be filed, this seems like a
| pretty significant acquisition.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Considering the words they're using across the announcement, it
| seems they're well aware what this will trigger, everything
| seems carefully chosen so someone can later point at this
| announcement and say "See, we think this will add MORE user
| choice, not less, which is good for competition!".
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Every major merger announcement includes this obvious lie.
| utucuro wrote:
| It is not a lie though. WB content is not globally
| available, Netflix content is. I for one, welcome access to
| stuff that WB has been sitting on without letting me pay
| them for it.
| izacus wrote:
| You keep posting this without any idea whether Netflix
| will relicense anything at all or if you're going to get
| the movies you want.
|
| It's just copium fueled corporate bootlicking at this
| point.
| gabrielgio wrote:
| It is a lie. You are holding on a possible short time
| gain while ignoring history proven long-term harm of
| reduced competition, which _will_ lead to higher prices,
| less innovation, and fewer choices for consumers.
|
| USA anti-trust process is a joke, it is shame that so
| many company with global footprint relies on that.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > WB content is not globally available, Netflix content
| is.
|
| Neither are "globally available" as "globally" includes
| countries that are currently under US embargo, and both
| those companies are US companies who (supposedly) follow
| US law.
|
| What you're welcoming isn't "I didn't have access before,
| now I do!" but rather "I could give Company A money to
| see this, now I can give company B money to see the
| same!" which I guess you're happy about, but other's
| obviously see it for what it is, no practical change
| except for shareholders.
| vintermann wrote:
| It will lead to more choice ... in videos to watch. It will
| reduce choice in where to watch them or who to pay for the
| pleasure.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Great re-iteration of my point :) Written for anti-trust
| regulators, intentionally misusing the words they'd use,
| but with very different meaning. Hopefully professionals
| will see through their thin veil.
| this_user wrote:
| With the current administration, anything can be legal.
|
| Besides, they still have plans to spin off the cable networks,
| so this would mostly concern the streaming assets, movie
| studio, and the IP.
| cromka wrote:
| The merger needs to be accepted by other markets, too. No
| offense but I find it quite amusing how Americans keep
| forgetting about that.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| How does this work? I assume there would be one parent
| company at the end and if that's an American company what
| does any other country can say about it? Sure if they
| incorporated a child company there they might interfere,
| but they could also just close the company to deal with the
| situation and go forward with the merger.
| hrimfaxi wrote:
| Either they comply or exit the country. Remember how the
| UK blocked the Microsoft/Activision merger for a time?
| nayroclade wrote:
| If a US company operates in a different country as well,
| it has to abide by the laws of that country, or leave it.
| For example, Adobe's acquisition of Figma was blocked by
| the UK and EU regulators, despite them both being US
| companies headquartered in San Francisco. They could have
| chosen to leave the UK and EU markets entirely, in which
| case their merger would have been able to proceed, but
| they wouldn't have been able to sell anything to UK/EU
| citizens.
| SSLy wrote:
| They have production, distribution, and marketing ops in
| other markets. Those could be flogged until compliance.
| Rastonbury wrote:
| Then they lobby Trump who threatens the country with
| tariffs
| matt_s wrote:
| How is this any bigger than Disney and all the media channels
| they own?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It isn't. They should have been stopped, too.
| haritha-j wrote:
| Where's Brendan Carr when you need him?
| auggierose wrote:
| Didn't they just buy HBO? Nice shopping spree!
| daveoc64 wrote:
| HBO is part of Warner Bros.
| mathgeek wrote:
| Love the difference in the two connotations here that leads
| to the confusion. "Netflix just bought HBO (a moment ago)" vs
| "Netflix just bought HBO (previously)".
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Combination Will Offer More Choice and Greater Value for
| Consumers, Create More Opportunities for the Creative Community
| and Generate Shareholder Value
|
| No doubt about the last part, but how does merging two giants
| create "More Choice"? I know corporate double-speak is already
| out of control and I know they're writing whatever they can do
| avoid regulators who surely are looking into the acquisition, but
| surely these executives cannot believe acquisitions lead to more
| choice, right?
| Shaanie wrote:
| More choice as in more content available to choose from on
| Netflix?
| embedding-shape wrote:
| So when they say "Consumers", it should really have been
| "Netflix Customers", as for everyone else there is less
| choice, only already paying Netflix users get more content.
| nottorp wrote:
| Already paying Netflix users will get to either agree with
| a price increase or leave :)
|
| After all, there is more "content" now.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| I'd really prefer better quality over quantity.
| Everything just feels like slop now and I find myself
| mostly only enjoying older movies. I find it's incredibly
| rare when I can actually find something half decent
| that's new on Netflix.
|
| Edit: Btw I find Max is like a better quality version of
| Netflix. But after a while I have the same problem there
| too. I find myself just watching something on YouTube
| instead most times
| lynx97 wrote:
| I cancelled my NetFlix subscription already, what, 7
| years ago, for that reason... However, it is not just
| NetFlix. Most newish movies don't do anything for me. I
| prefer a movie from the 90s (or even earlier) over almost
| anything produced in the last 5 to 10 years. It is likely
| a generational thing, and a case of old man yelling at
| clouds. If studios think effects are more important then
| the actual story, well then, so be it.
| nottorp wrote:
| May be that our tolerance for samey bullshit reduces with
| age. After all, we've seen it all before. The movie
| industry isn't that imaginative.
|
| Also, survivor bias. You have to go out of the way to
| find mentions of crap 3rd rate old movies. We only
| remember the good ones.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's fun to pick a year and do a deep dive on everything
| that was released to theaters (old newspapers with movie
| times are great for this) - so much crap you never heard
| about, unless it was phenomenally bad.
| nottorp wrote:
| Speaking of which, I recently ran into scans of some
| local magazines from the 30s.
|
| There was a cinema magazine, and i ran into a 6 page
| obituary for this guy:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Chaney
|
| Some silent movie star. Never heard of him before. Looks
| like he was worth 1/8 of the non-ad content 1 year after
| his death in 1931.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| There's even more content on "gentlemen of fortune"-type
| sites. Just saying.
| nottorp wrote:
| That's their competition. I wonder if they realize it.
|
| > I find it's incredibly rare when I can actually find
| something half decent that's new on Netflix.
|
| There was recently some link on HN about Netflix and
| using "AI" for "content creation".
|
| Not that Netflix scripts didn't sound like an "AI" wrote
| them even before "AI".
| nottorp wrote:
| Wait I just realized Warner is hbo. Means now im paying
| netflix two times.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| ... don't paying Netflix customers already have access to
| the whole HBO back-catalogue?
| redeux wrote:
| As a Netflix subscriber, that would be news to me.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Not here (Germany).
|
| HBO isn't available at all on it's own. It's exclusively
| sublicensed (until the end of this year) to Sky which has
| a terrible terrible user experience and of course is
| another subscription.
|
| Two days ago there was an announcement that HBO Max is to
| start in Germany in January. Let's see how that develops
| after the acquisition.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| Maybe they mean more content will be produced, which I
| believe. But I'd also argue that we really don't need more
| content on Netflix, we need higher quality. Netflix is
| drowning in a sea of mediocrity to the point where I have
| almost given up on investing in a new show because almost all
| of them reek of lazy writing and good-enough-but-not-
| outstanding direction. There are exceptions, but they are
| damn hard to find.
| imglorp wrote:
| I think it will.
|
| Now they don't have to go negotiate for every WB content
| item. As it stands, subscribers might or might not get WB
| things, same as all the other IP holders that are playing
| hard to get. Otherwise, they might have to contract some
| seasons of a show from one holder and some from another, and
| maybe not at all sometimes.
| marcusb wrote:
| More choice as in "more revenue streams from which to create
| shareholder value."
| utucuro wrote:
| I guess you are in the US. For you, WB content was already
| available. But you see, they never bothered to make that
| content available for most of the rest of the world. Netflix,
| on the other hand, is available most anywhere. This is exactly
| what it says on the can - more choice and greater value for me.
| jayveeone wrote:
| Your Netflix bill is about to skyrocket and there's no
| guarantee you'll have access to those titles.
| znpy wrote:
| I always smile at these situations. Yahrrr!
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Yeah what I was thinking was ah higher quality low
| bitrate content. Will need to set the apps to auto update
| some stuff.
| whizzter wrote:
| Well if I can cancel my HBO Max it will probably be a zero-
| sum thing (all the crappy "discovery" content they tacked
| on was just annoying and I have little interest in their
| "sports" offerings)
| windexh8er wrote:
| The unfortunate reality is that HBO may have less content
| but there's also less garbage. I'm constantly blown away
| by how mediocre everything on Netflix is. I only have it
| because it's bundled into myobile bill at a legacy
| discount which makes it only a few dollars a month. I
| wouldn't pay full price for Netflix now and I will likely
| remove it altogether if they do another price hike that
| adds a few more dollars beyond my current discount
| (~70%).
| runako wrote:
| > HBO may have less content but there's also less garbage
|
| If you leave the featured areas and venture into any of
| the categories, you will see that HBO is also full of
| junk. HBO -> Browse by Genre -> A-Z -> any of them are
| full of junk.
|
| The Netflix featured pages are more geared to showing you
| stuff you haven't seen yet, while HBO is geared toward
| showing you popular stuff, even if you have watched it on
| HBO.
| bayindirh wrote:
| What's written on the can reads "please don't sue us, we're
| not a monopoly, and we will not gouge users".
|
| On the other hand Netflix will make its subscribers fund
| everything without reducing their income, and will not give
| these subscribers at least half of that content, because, why
| not?
| bombcar wrote:
| If approval of this resulted in Netflix being required to
| release their crap on DVD (eventually) it's actually be a
| win for consumers.
|
| DVDs at least keep working.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Yes. However, I'd take a downloadable, well encoded and
| chapter marked mp4 over any DVD. 1080p SDR is enough.
|
| I can just store it in my NAS and watch it whenever I
| like it.
| bombcar wrote:
| Somewhat same end result; DVDs just are more palatable to
| the studios - you argue it is for "libraries".
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > What's written on the can reads "please don't sue us,
| we're not a monopoly, and we will not gouge users".
|
| No reawwy this time we double-dog super promise
| YcYc10 wrote:
| But Netflix content breadth and quality varies a lot from
| country to country. There's not one Netflix.
| troupo wrote:
| Netflix buying WB doesn't mean that licensing immediately
| becomes available worldwide.
|
| Netflix can provide its own content everywhere around the
| globe because they are the sole owner of it. The distribution
| rights to WB properties outside of the US will belong to
| completely different legal entities (even if those entities
| have WB in them).
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > I guess you are in the US.
|
| I am not, and WB was available via local options here
| (Southern European country).
|
| For me who isn't a Netflix customer (the group which is
| larger than the group of people who have Netflix, obviously),
| the choice gets less.
|
| And obviously anti-trust regulation doesn't care about the
| amount of choices for Netflix customers specifically, it
| cares about amount of choices for consumers at large, which
| will decrease with this change.
| thesnide wrote:
| > more choice and greater value for me
|
| That will exactly follow Netflix's price hikes.
|
| As in "value for money", they silenced the latter part :D
| kgwgk wrote:
| I don't know what do you mean by "most of the rest of the
| world" but it's widely available in the American continent
| and Europe coverage will be almost complete in the next
| month(s):
|
| https://press.wbd.com/us/media-release/hbo-max/hbo-max-
| nears...
| atherton94027 wrote:
| I think it's unlikely to change because most likely the
| content was not available for legal reasons, not technical.
| That's why for example when they re-release some shows they
| have to switch out to completely different music - the rights
| were not cleared in the first place and it'd be a huge hassle
| to go back and negotiate with every rightholder
| otterley wrote:
| Netflix acquiring WB's content will not necessarily lead to
| all of it being available for streaming to you in any given
| country. Content licensing is complicated, to put it mildly.
| ostacke wrote:
| Adding Warner Bros. catalog will naturally lead to more titles
| to choose from for Netflix users. The choice of streaming
| services will be slimmer though. It will be interesting to see
| how regulators see it.
| jbs789 wrote:
| I think that wording is targeted at anti-trust regulators.
| nelox wrote:
| More choice for users of Netflix
| windexh8er wrote:
| That is, maybe, until they gate keep the WB content beyond
| additional premiums.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > No doubt about the last part, but how does merging two giants
| create "More Choice"?
|
| This is performative marketing for the regulators to allow the
| merger. No one (including the regulators) believes this, and it
| won't come to pass. ("More choice" won't, I mean, the merger
| will and a lot of regulators and politicians involved will end
| up with new cars, boats, and kids' college tuitions paid.)
| whycome wrote:
| It potentially means fewer subscriptions to have more content
| options (eg, a bunch of services get folded into Netflix). Of
| course it will be region dependent for other licenses and
| rights.
| renegade-otter wrote:
| There should be never any talk about "Shareholder Value".
| Shareholders do not create content, they do not subscribe at
| scale. Once your customer is no longer the focus, it's downhill
| from there, and it's been downhill for a WHILE.
|
| I killed my Netflix sub over a year ago and I never even think
| about it. It's all dull, empty-calorie background TV.
|
| The sad part is how the iconic HBO brand, already beaten by WBD
| into a pulp, is just going to merge with this average-ness and
| fade. End of an era, indeed.
| rohankhameshra wrote:
| Interesting, that will bring a big production house capabilities
| within Netflix itself
| jmkd wrote:
| Netflix is already the sole client of a huge studio outside
| Madrid.
| niek_pas wrote:
| Unfortunately, Netflix thus far seems to lack the creative
| vision to fully utilize any size of production house (barring
| rare exceptions).
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| So they can raise the prices again in a few months?
| jamesbelchamber wrote:
| Buy those blu-rays while you still can (:
| Ateoto wrote:
| Yeah, as a physical media collector, this is pretty
| devastating.
| sph wrote:
| Plenty of blu-rays thrive in the high seas.
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| If they stop making them its gonna be hard to rip them.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| At least so far, some private groups have access to
| Widevine decryptors.
| SSLy wrote:
| Widevine L3 are galore. _Ahem_
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| The problem is the quality.
|
| Those streams are only like 6-10mbps bitrate. A regular
| blu-ray is closer to 30, and UHD can be well over
| 100mbps.
| utf_8x wrote:
| Yarr
| lurk2 wrote:
| This wasn't on my radar at all. Was this kept quiet or did I just
| not hear about it?
| Macha wrote:
| It's been talked about for like a month now
| protocolture wrote:
| Its been going around in cicles between "WB is fine, just
| rejected 2 other offers, whats the worst that could happen" and
| "Netflix buy out any day now WB is in the toilet"
| doublet00th wrote:
| Does anyone who's participated in M&A know how they come up with
| a breakup fee? I believe this one is $5 Billion (per Bloomberg),
| and Adobe <-> Figma was $1 Billion.
|
| Interested to understand the modeling that goes into it.
| brk wrote:
| Based on some experience, it's like a bond to appear in court.
| The number is mostly an arbitrary calculation designed to
| discourage you from not following through.
| nutjob2 wrote:
| Like everything else it's just a negotiated figure. Arguments
| to and fro would include the likelihood of breakup (such as
| regulatory risk, unforeseen events), how disruptive the whole
| process is and also simply how desperate the buyer or seller
| is.
|
| There's no modeling, it's a punishment or incentive. The
| intention is to inflict financial pain.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's a rough baseline of "cost to be acquired" and you
| start there, and do some doubling or other increases.
|
| Basically, being acquired is a pain in the assets and you
| want it to be worth your while to pursue it, even if it falls
| through, otherwise the board is looking at getting replaced.
| wigster wrote:
| $82.7BILLION
|
| no wonder my subscription keeps going up
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I wonder when the ads will come. There probably already is a
| enshittification roadmap that they're working against.
| IceDane wrote:
| Netflix already has a cheap subscription with ads.
| AnssiH wrote:
| Netflix added ad-supported plans in 2022.
| pcurve wrote:
| Not sure how many of you have WBD shares with its rather
| tumultuous past (spin off from ATT, the Bill Hwang mess), but if
| you've picked up shares on the cheap in the past few years sub
| $10, congratulations.
|
| "Under the terms of the agreement, each WBD shareholder will
| receive $23.25 in cash and $4.501 in shares of Netflix common
| stock for each share of WBD common stock outstanding at the
| closing of the transaction. "
| dizhn wrote:
| That's $4.50 superscript 1
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I thought someone really had to break some threshold so they
| wouldn't close the deal unless they got another .001. Like
| maybe some bonus depended upon some target value.
| saretup wrote:
| WBD price at this moment is just $25.28. I think there are some
| complicated conditions associated with the terms.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The exchanges are also closed.
| CamelCaseName wrote:
| Premarket open
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Note: this is after completion of the current splitting of WBD;
| as you'd expect Netflix wants the catalog and production but
| they're not taking the sports and some other pieces. The left
| over / newly revived Discovery Global will likely be a
| hollowed-out shell of less desirable properties saddled with a
| bunch of debt.
| arkis22 wrote:
| If you have done this I would suggest selling now because of
| possible anti-trust problems
| udev4096 wrote:
| Couldn't care less, sailing the high sea is peaceful!
| jayveeone wrote:
| What a weird thing to say
| wiseowise wrote:
| You'll care when there will be no physical media and you're
| left with compressed shit shown down your throat.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> You 'll care when there will be no physical media_
|
| Physical media is on the way out for the most part, where it
| isn't already gone, and Netflix & co are the reason, not
| piracy.
|
| _> and you 're left with compressed shit shown down your
| throat._
|
| WRT "compressed shit": the quality of _ahem_ copies is often
| no worse than you 'd get from an official streamed source.
| For those that have 4K-capable eyes it is often better as it
| JustWorks(tm) without quality dipping out due to bandwidth
| issues at the streamer, your ISP, or somewhere between, or
| for local playback needing a long fight to convince your Sony
| TV to accept that Sony media player connected via a Sony
| brand cable is legit.
|
| I actually pay for a couple of streaming services (though
| Prime largely begrudgingly as it got rolled into the delivery
| service I use), but still get media from _ahem_ other sources
| because the playback UX is often preferable.
|
| Or if by "compressed shit" you are referring to the
| intellectual quality of the content not the technical merits
| of the medium, if it all turns to mush I'll just watch even
| less than I already do the same way I practically never game
| these days (though that is due to both content quality and
| technical matters). I've got other hobbies competing for my
| attention, I can just live without TV if TV quality falls
| further.
| jtuple wrote:
| I believe the GP was referring to most quality rips
| originating from physical media (ie. 4K UHDs).
|
| In a world without physical media, the best piracy can
| deliver is no better than the best encoding streamers have
| available (and that assumes DRM circumvention remains
| forever possible, otherwise we're gonna get worst quality
| from re-encoding decoded playbacks)
|
| > the quality of ahem copies is often no worse than you'd
| get from an official streamed source
|
| "No worse than streamed" is a far cry from a quality high-
| bitrate 4k UHD physical release.
| oblio wrote:
| > In a world without physical media, the best piracy can
| deliver is no better than the best encoding streamers
| have available (and that assumes DRM circumvention
| remains forever possible, otherwise we're gonna get worst
| quality from re-encoding decoded playbacks)
|
| I wonder if we can use modern tech to get high quality
| screen recordings.
|
| By "screen recordings" I mean pointing an actual camera
| at a screen and by "high quality" I mean some sort of
| post processing involving automation to remove noise and
| other artifacts.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| That doesn't stop an entire studio's worth of output becoming
| dumbed down to second screen content like Stranger Things.
| luc_ wrote:
| Too big to fail?
| pfdietz wrote:
| Placidly uncaring since long ago I stopped consuming media from
| either party.
| glup wrote:
| Placidly uncaring since long ago as I stopped consuming media
| full stop.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Exclusively consuming social media like HN for your media
| sounds way worse than Game of Thrones, The Other Two, Emily
| in Paris or even Love is Blind
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| If someone wants "film school" you can do a lot worse than
| ticking off the film from the "1001 Movies to See Before You
| Die" [1].
|
| It may take you the next decade to complete. There are some
| real oddballs in there that lean toward "art film" (but what do
| you expect from Andy Warhol). A lot of "foreign" films (foreign
| for this U.S. viewer). In short a lot of surprises.
|
| Definitely feel like a student of film now (for whatever that's
| worth).
|
| [1] https://1001films.fandom.com/wiki/The_List
| mdotmertens wrote:
| As someone who has recently begun exploring physical media, I
| find this quite disappointing. The volume on 4K Blu-Rays is often
| low, prices are high, and Netflix isn't doing much to support
| physical media.
|
| When you're just unwinding in front of a 65-inch screen, you
| might not notice the quality loss from compression. However, if
| you're actively watching on a 110-inch projector with an
| excellent sound system, every little detail becomes clear.
|
| And that doesn't even address the most frustrating part: owning
| less and less.
|
| I mean, no one needs to become a physical distributor, but it's
| disheartening that we lack consumer-friendly ownership of
| entertainment media when it comes to movies. I would love to see
| something like Bandcamp, but specifically for studios to release
| their movies to.
| mrits wrote:
| I can hardly blame a company for not supporting a product
| almost nobody wants to go back to.
| mathgeek wrote:
| There are a whole bunch of choice quotes from 1984 that apply
| to this situation, but my favorite is still this one: "The
| choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for
| the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better."
| mrits wrote:
| Nothing like a copyrighted text to use as the bible of
| freedom
| mathgeek wrote:
| Not sure who you are talking about but I wouldn't
| consider it anything beyond a work of fiction with some
| applicable quotes.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > I can hardly blame a company for not supporting a product
| almost nobody wants to go back to.
|
| But that logic we should keep only insta, tiktok and youtube
| shorts.
| mrits wrote:
| Remind me in 20 years when we have old people complaining
| nobody is supporting traditional social media
| wiseowise wrote:
| They already do, no need to go 20 years further.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Unfortunately, that may yet become a reality.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > When you're just unwinding in front of a 65-inch screen, you
| might not notice the quality loss from compression.
|
| this has little to do with the resolution, though. maybe 4k
| just gets the benefit of being compressed with better codecs.
|
| for me at least, watching shows/movies at typical viewing
| distance, a well-encoded 4k->1080p mkv is only very slightly
| less sharp and is vastly smaller to store on the media server.
| komali2 wrote:
| I'm curious, because I've had an interest in physical media,
| especially videogames, but what I keep coming back to is, "why
| would I bother when I can just pirate it?"
|
| What's the attraction to the physical media given the
| availability of these versions online?
| wiseowise wrote:
| > What's the attraction to the physical media given the
| availability of these versions online?
|
| Where do you think they've got the version that circulates
| the net?
| Springtime wrote:
| Pirating doesn't help sustain the very thing being pirated,
| if you want a tangible rather than moralistic reason.
|
| 4K (Ultra HD) Blu-Ray is likely the last physical home video
| media generation to be produced. Disney has pulled physical
| out of the Asian market, Best Buy stopped releasing any
| physical media beside games, Target stopped selling them
| beside certain DVDs.
|
| If you want any chance of actually having high quality
| releases continue it needs to be supported. An issue though
| is certain less mainstream releases in Ultra HD Blu-Ray can
| be rather pricey (if they get a release at all). However I
| still buy those I'm interested in since I don't want lower
| quality streaming-tier video to be the _only_ option
| available in the future, apart from concerns about the
| volatile nature of online-only libraries (various of which
| have been wholly removed in the past when licensing
| /ownership changes).
| Keyframe wrote:
| don't be discouraged. 4k/UHD BR is still alive and well, even
| though it never can beat price of comparatively worse streaming
| versions. I just bought a relatively expensive UHD player and
| there are a lot of movies, and what I've noticed there are also
| boutique offerings and remasters going on in the market which I
| haven't noticed before. Going forward though, I'm not sure if
| there will be future for releases of new movies outside of big
| productions.
| ostacke wrote:
| I wonder what the US administration will demand from Netflix for
| approving this.
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| equity stake obviously
| alberth wrote:
| It's interesting that the stock market has no reaction to this
| news, after hours.
|
| As of writing this, Netflix is -0.6%
| komali2 wrote:
| "Priced in" I guess. I mean look at Warner Bros stock, steadily
| climbing the last couple months until it hit basically exactly
| the price shareholders will get in exchange for their shares as
| part of this deal.
|
| Whenever one of my friends says they're thinking about getting
| into daytrading, all I can think is good luck beating the
| funds... they either can predict the future or just write it
| themselves.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I hope that this means that the Netflix app on AppleTV will
| _finally_ become a "first class citizen."
|
| The Netflix app has always been treated badly by Apple. No idea
| why, but it means that I can't have Netflix content in the
| "What's Next" queue (among other things, like Netflix actors'
| work not showing up in show information).
| ezfe wrote:
| 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.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Ah. That makes sense.
|
| Thanks for the elucidation.
|
| If that's the case, then we'll probably lose another app or
| two.
|
| :'(
| alt227 wrote:
| And quite rightly so. Why would Netflix let Apple list all
| their content in an Apple branded interface as if it were
| their own?
| vluft wrote:
| that is _purely_ netflix's decision; they have decided not to
| integrate. in fact, earlier this year netflix accidentally
| rolled out their internal version which has full integration
| with the APIs and then said "oopsie" and removed it again.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Yep. The APIs have always been publicly available for
| streaming services to use, Netflix just refuses to use them.
|
| The reason is pretty obvious. Netflix would rather have users
| open their app directly so there's opportunity to shove
| things in their faces, collect data from their browsing, and
| ideally become positioned as the user's "main" streaming app.
| The user having a hub app and treating Netflix as one of
| several services directly opposes their aims.
|
| The situation shares a lot of similarities with Spotify,
| which also refuses to take advantage of native APIs for the
| same reasons. Though in their case, there's an added layer of
| irony with how they make all a big ruckus about how Apple
| needs to open their platforms up only for them to pretend
| APIs don't exist after Apple adds them. As an example Apple
| had to hardcode a hack into HomePods to enable Spotify to
| work with them; where most services (Pandora, Tidal, etc)
| hook the official HomePod streaming APIs which pull directly
| from the service to the device, for Spotify Apple has to
| automatically AirPlay Spotify playing on the user's phone to
| the HomePod. It's ridiculous.
| mrud wrote:
| This is on Netflix not Apple. They enabled it this by accident
| and reverted it back
| https://www.theverge.com/news/613307/netflix-apple-tv-app-su...
| meffmadd wrote:
| Wow that is quite anti-consumer! Surely a monopoly on
| streaming will help them realize this. /s
| alt227 wrote:
| I dont think its anti consumer, just anti competitive. Why
| would you allow a direct competitior to show your content
| on their branded devices and interface to help them become
| a one stop shop for all streaming services?
|
| Apple should not be allowed to become a streaming front for
| all other companies.
| meffmadd wrote:
| Yeah true, but also this is a bit like saying the lock
| screen of your phone should not become a "one stop shop"
| for all push notifications. I actually do not own an
| Apple TV but I just imaging you have a list of shows from
| different streaming providers on the "home screen" (like
| it is on my PS4). And on a technical level it is just an
| API you integrate with (same as push notifications),
| which helps UX.
| srameshc wrote:
| 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.
| djtango wrote:
| 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
| wiseowise wrote:
| > how did these companies drop the ball so bad
|
| Companies didn't, leadership did. For a big, fat check. And
| they're happily retired now, sitting in their expensive
| villas with millions on their balance.
|
| They couldn't care less about your happy childhood memories
| that the content produced by their predecessors engraved in
| your mind.
| maeln wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I feel like some of those very diversified company tend to be
| the one who struggle to evolve and adapt because some part of
| their business are worried about being cannibalized by the
| new business opportunity (like how streaming "killed"
| physical media). I.e, if you are the director of the "DVD
| player division" you have an active interest in killing any
| potential streaming division. Reality is of course more
| complex than this, but this is the kind of story we sometimes
| hear off when "too big to fail" companies end up missing a
| major shift.
| busssard wrote:
| Silo-ing is the biggest brake on human progress
| yannyu wrote:
| Innovator's dilemma. Leadership won't invest in the up-and-
| coming product because they've got a $1 billion revenue
| target they need to hit this year.
|
| Funnily, Netflix is a common case study on how to
| transition past the dilemma.
|
| I don't remember where I heard the original story, but this
| snippet from this article sums up why and how they
| deliberately cut the DVD team out of the company culture.
|
| > "In periods of radical change in any industry, the legacy
| players generally have a challenge, which is they're trying
| to protect their legacy businesses. We entered into a
| business in transition when we started mailing DVDs 25
| years ago. We knew that physical media was not going to be
| the future. When I met Reed Hastings in 1999, he described
| the world we live in right now, which is almost all
| entertainment is going to come into the home on the
| internet. And he told me that at a time when literally no
| entertainment was coming into the home on the internet. And
| it really helped us navigate this transition from physical
| to digital, because we just didn't spend any time trying to
| protect our DVD business. As it started to wane, we started
| to invest more and more in streaming. And we did that
| because we knew that that's where the puck was going. At
| one point, our DVD business was driving all the profit of
| the business and a lot of the revenue, and we made a
| conscious decision to stop inviting the DVD employees to
| the company meeting. We were that rigid about where this
| thing was heading."
|
| https://colemaninsights.com/coleman-insights-
| blog/netflixs-s...
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Most notably Sony which produced TVs, Computers, DVD
| players, Media Centers. They owned a movie studio and record
| label.
|
| They still do all those things? And they're still successful
| in most of them? They haven't "failed" or "dropped the ball"
| based on any metric I can think of. I'm not sure what you're
| referring to here to be honest.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| Yeah lol, Sony still doing good in Music,Film etc
|
| Sony just focus at their home market more
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| They purposefully stayed out of the money losing
| streaming wars and sell their content to the highest
| bidder
| embedding-shape wrote:
| They have a streaming platform though! Sony Pictures
| Core. Seems half the comments in this submission is just
| straight up guessing and assuming whatever guesses they
| make are correct. Would take like 30 seconds to just
| fact-check what you're about to write.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| It looks like it's mostly focused on renting and buying
| movies on demand. We are talking about pay a fee and
| streaming all you want.
|
| That's a completely different market. They are not trying
| to compete with Netflix and in fact have a deal with them
| that Netflix has first right of refusal to stream any
| Sony film
|
| https://www.sonypictures.com/corp/press_releases/2021/040
| 8
|
| Sony created KPop Demon Hunters and sold the streaming
| rights to Netflix .
|
| If you look at any of their popular back catalog TV
| content, it is all being streamed on other services.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > It looks like it's mostly focused on renting and buying
| movies on demand. We are talking about pay a fee and
| streaming all you want.
|
| Then you might have to look a bit closer :) There are
| plans out there that give you a fixed monthly fee and
| stream all you want, so that effectively makes it a
| streaming service even by your definition.
|
| Not saying they are trying to compete with Netflix, but
| they do have a streaming service.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| You can't watch the full catalog of movies they have for
| rent or purchase for one price.
|
| You know you're being pedantic.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Same is true for Amazon, you can't watch 100% of the
| content unless you "Buy"/Rent, so is Amazon Prime Video
| not a streaming service?
|
| You know you're trying to be misleading, but not everyone
| falls for those sort of things.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| No you're being pedantic. Compare Amazon Prime Video
| subscription content to Sony's subscription content.
|
| Is Amazon creating new content and giving other streaming
| services first dibs on it? Are they putting their back
| catalog content on other streaming services en masse?
|
| Is Sony spending billions of dollars to produce content
| to go on their own streaming service like Amazon, Apple,
| Netflix, Peacock, HBO Max (for now)?
|
| Heck is HBO releasing theatrical movies and giving first
| run streaming rights to other streaming services?
|
| You're not making serious arguments if you don't see the
| difference between every other streaming service and what
| Sony is doing or seeing what companies with both
| streaming services and movie studios like Warner Bros,
| Disney, and Paramount are doing.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| You're making this way more complicated than it is, no
| need to compare against others to understand if what Sony
| is doing is a streaming service or not.
|
| So I guess back to basics:
|
| > A streaming media service, also known as streaming
| service, is an online provider that allows users to watch
| or listen to content, such as films, TV series, music, or
| podcasts, over the Internet
|
| Fairly simple, I think at least. So with that, is what
| Sony is doing a streaming service, regardless of what
| HBO/Amazon/their mother is doing? Yes, in my humble
| opinion, what Sony is offering lets users "watch or
| listen to content, such as films, TV series, music, or
| podcasts, over the Internet", so it is a streaming
| service.
|
| I disagree it's pedantic, it's just understanding what
| terms mean, in this particular case, what "streaming
| service" means.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| These are two businesses, both under the Sony name:
| content production and content distribution. Very likely
| they are two different divisions with different P&Ls.
|
| Every "streaming service" is a distributor. Some of them
| are also content producers.
|
| Content production is also a bizarre mini world of VC-
| type funding and shell/temporary production corporations.
| Some companies lean heavily into that, some do a more
| traditional in-house studio model, some do both.
| pests wrote:
| Prime video is more than just prime content, they are
| more of a marketplace where you can watch competitors
| content as well. Like their web marketplace for tv and
| movies. That's why you can sign up for things like HBO
| and even Apple TV directly via Prime.
| autoexec wrote:
| I'm sure everybody with a Bravia TV is super excited. If
| you have a streaming service no one knows or cares about
| do you even have a streaming service?
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Or anyone who plays online with a PS4 or PS5, which
| correct me if I'm wrong, probably is more people than the
| people with Bravia TVs.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Yeah and how many of those are subscribing to Sony's
| streaming service where they don't even put their
| releases on during the initial streaming release window
| and don't have any of their popular backlog content?
|
| There isn't an iOS app or a Roku app. Even AppleTV+ is on
| Roku. This isn't a serious streaming service.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| My point is that it's included...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Sony bought Crunchyroll + Funimation but I have to admit
| that I'm sick of normie anime like _Bleach_ and I crave
| the kind of things that you find on HDIVE like
| _Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted
| Companions Tried to Kill Me, but Thanks to the Gift of an
| Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out for
| Revenge on My Former Party Members and the World._ [1]
|
| [1] If the _Anime News Network_ finishes reviewing it
| doesn 't make the cut
| wincy wrote:
| Right reading that, didn't Sony produce KPOP demon hunters,
| which is now the most watched movie of all time?
| mandevil wrote:
| Sony sold it to Netflix (after the pandemic but before it
| was finished) for a fixed price which locked in a small
| profit for Sony but got them NOTHING for it being the
| most watched movie of all time, and Netflix gets all of
| the sequels as well, so they can't get anything from
| theaters for those movies either.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| Sony has crunchyroll
|
| They didn't fumble around as much, also Sony still has
| leverage a lot on Japan Industry
| sznio wrote:
| >They also have in house expertise with cloud content
| distribution via PlayStation.
|
| Maybe it's better now, but looking at the PS3-era PSN, that
| expertise had negative value.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| And no OS. That certainly helped Apple.
| bee_rider wrote:
| If everybody is dropping the ball, my first guess is that
| catching it is actually legitimately difficult.
| whycome wrote:
| It's exactly the reason why. They focused on proprietary
| formats/devices to lock consumers in
| fullshark wrote:
| Hindsight is 20/20 and the Innovator's Dilemma is very real.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Most notably Sony which produced TVs, Computers, DVD
| players, Media Centers.
|
| The answer to that one is simple: they were bad at software.
|
| Apple and then Android killed the market for all those
| hardware devices and physical media.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| I remember Sony.
|
| Sony Rootkit, Sony BetaMax, Sony MiniDisc, Sony ATRAC, Sony
| Memory Stick [Select / PRO / Duo / PRO Duo / PRO-HG Duo / M2
| / XC / PRO-HG Duo HX / WTF], Sony UMD, Sony Elcaset, Sony
| SDDS, Sony VAIO, Sony Walkman, Sony Discman, [...]
|
| At least they had some lasting success with their Umatic
| video tape cartridge, and with the CD that they co-developed
| with Philips. Their Trinitron tubes were unique and generally
| quite good -- and they lasted as long in the market as any
| other CRT did, I suppose. And their various iterations of
| PlayStation console have all been popular despite being Sony
| products.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > Someday a new startup will piggy bank on Netflix and probably
| buy it later.
|
| Is that a financialised version of piggybacking?
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Considering WB was once the champion of that format too. Guess
| that is end of DVD now. Netflix has no interest in that format.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > Guess that is end of DVD now. Netflix has no interest in
| that format
|
| and neither do consumers. video over the internet is the
| future that Netflix saw 20 years ago, when others didn't,
| except YouTube.
| autoexec wrote:
| That's absolutely not the case. Demand for physical media
| not only continues to exist but it's growing as streaming
| services prove undependable at keeping shows available, and
| are willing to censor/edit shows at a whim.
| andsoitis wrote:
| For most things in the world there's _some_ demand, but
| that doesn't mean it is a big business.
|
| I buy vinyl but mostly listen to music on Tidal. People
| buy cassettes and CDs, but that's, for all intents and
| purposes, a dead business.
|
| The physical medium is not the content.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Well, AOL did ship 1 billion CDs over its heyday and they
| acquired Warner Brothers in 2000...
| palata wrote:
| > Someday a new startup will piggy bank on Netflix and probably
| buy it later.
|
| I think what history shows us is that the modern monopolies
| managed to destroy antitrust to the point where nobody will
| ever do to them what they did to others.
| paxys wrote:
| People said that a generation ago as well, and the one before
| that. Yeah monopolies make it hard, but every one of them
| eventually crumbles to the next wave of innovation.
| butlike wrote:
| Yup. Can't redirect the ocean. So-to-speak.
| palata wrote:
| I disagree. I strongly recommend this talk by Cory
| Doctorow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EmstuO0Em8
| touristtam wrote:
| They have to as a stop gap before going on generating full
| feature film on demand. Those streaming service are all
| struggling to have an attractive enough catalog for an extended
| period of time for a lot of folks with their shitty pricing
| policies.
| andrewla wrote:
| If I had a nickel for every time a company that sends out
| optical disks bought Warner Brothers, I'd have $0.10, which is
| not a lot, but strange that it happened twice.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| > Someday a new startup will piggy bank on Netflix and probably
| buy it later.
|
| Netflix got it's start shipping CDs, which was only possible
| due to the first-sale doctrine. The rights landscape hasn't
| adjusted for the new technologies. How could an new player
| disrupt a streaming world when everything is so locked down?
| pluc wrote:
| Aaah the race to the bottom accelerates.
|
| I haven't been a Netflix user for years, the quality of their
| stuff went past a level I was no longer comfortable supporting.
| It became a platform that is designed to keep you watching
| (literally anything) as opposed to a platform to find
| interesting/relevant entertainment. So much low quality, low
| effort content. Wonder which of AI wrong-but-instant answers or
| Netflix' empty entertainment will contribute more to genpop
| enshitification.
| winstonwinston wrote:
| Exactly. Netflix is doing a total opposite of HBO content. Also
| HBO has been great at localization for european regions (subs,
| local content) unlike Netflix which cannot be bothered to even
| make subtitles for markets they sell to.
|
| IMO,Netflix wants to acquire their main competitor in europe.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Oh cool, knock-on price hikes across not just the streaming
| industry, but all the other industries that decided they needed
| to bundle streaming subscriptions with their products.
|
| Can't wait to pay _even more_ for my cell bill because they give
| me "free" Netflix!
| razodactyl wrote:
| "Who acquires Warner Bros. Wtf" - comments heard over my shoulder
| as I mention the title of this post.
| phartenfeller wrote:
| I don't like this. Netflix rarely creates excellent content;
| instead, it frequently produces mediocre or worse content. Will
| the same happen for Warner? Are cinemas now second behind
| streaming?
|
| Edit: I agree Netflix has good Originals. But most are from the
| early days when they favored quality over quantity. It is sad to
| see that they reversed that. They have much funding power and
| should give it to great art that really sticks, has ambitions and
| something to tell, and values my time instead of mediocrity.
| unglaublich wrote:
| Netflix is `while profitable(): make_sequel()` which _always_
| ends with shitty content and incomplete stories.
| user2722 wrote:
| All TV series on Netflix end in S01. Even if they don't, it's
| a new show with same characters but lousy writing. Looking at
|
| * The CIA laywer who doesn't know about green passport
|
| * FUBAR
|
| * The Diplomat
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Mostly agree but their original k-dramas for the US market
| are pretty good.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Is it still a K-drama if it's for the US market?
| Oras wrote:
| They are agile
| bmacho wrote:
| How are Netflix created contents profitable? I guess Netflix
| pays shows based on user time spent, and a Netflix show is
| profitable if users spend time on it, and not on other shows?
| afavour wrote:
| I actually think that's the opposite of Netflix. TV shows
| rarely make it past a second season, as soon as there's even
| a mild drop in viewing figures they drop a property like a
| hot potato.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Note the OP's algo was *while* profitable. You're focused
| on shows that never make it. I think this is true of the
| cash cows, while dogs are historically (with only one or
| two channels so limited broadcast bandwidth) networks could
| be far more brutal while Netflix needs a much bigger
| catalog.
| hbn wrote:
| 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.
| triceratops wrote:
| You're describing the entertainment business.
| amrrs wrote:
| Honestly speaking Netflix has good catalog, much more
| comparable to Hollywood. Take the latest Frankenstein for
| example.
|
| Don't look at only series. They also have recipes repurposed.
| But they acquire good titles and also produce some good ones.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| I have 459 titles on my IMDB watchlist and a tiny percentage
| of it is available on Netflix (if at all), but this is
| anecdotal and might have to do something to where I live.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| 459!? It must take a while to check your list...
| lxgr wrote:
| Netflix outside of the US is a very different experience.
|
| In the US, it's mostly their own productions and older
| content they explicitly acquired, but elsewhere, especially
| in markets that don't have a local HBO or Disney streaming
| service, they have incredible backlogs.
|
| I remember finding basically everything I could wish for on
| there when traveling in SE Asia almost a decade ago,
| compared to a still decent offering in Western Europe, and
| mostly cobwebs in the US.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Is it actually worse than the status quo though? I'm not so
| sure.
|
| I hate this era of consolidation but Warner and HBO have
| already degraded, so this may be the least bad outcome here.
| snarkyturtle wrote:
| Warner Bros has had their best summer in years (Sinners,
| Superman, etc). HBO still makes highly regarded prestige TV
| series (The Last Of Us, Task, etc). This is just false.
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| That video game/superhero IP adaptations are considered
| "prestige TV" says more about diminished creative
| expectations than HBO continuing to uphold it's traditional
| high standards.
|
| Nothing against people who like them, to each his own. But
| the throughput of quality programming out of HBO has
| dropped off a cliff through it's multiple changes in
| ownership.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Yeah, HBO has moved decidedly down market.
|
| Apple is at least trying to fill their old niche. It seems
| quite telling that the only company truing to do the whole
| "prestige TV" thing is a kind of side-project for a hardware
| company. At least nobody can buy them, though.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > Apple
|
| do we really want big tech to also control our media?
| bee_rider wrote:
| > want
|
| I described what is happening, not what I want to have
| happen.
|
| Anyway it is entertainment media, not news media, so less
| of a big deal. But yeah it would be nice if somebody else
| tried.
| throwaway902984 wrote:
| Apple has a family friendly bent that HBO had been degraded
| by sadly. Disnified. Adult oriented HBO quality shows don't
| exist anymore do they?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Apple seems to have a no-nudity policy more or less (or
| at least, minimal nudity).
|
| I dunno. Sex is part of human existence so it shouldn't
| be off-limits for media IMO. But the sort of perfunctory
| thing where every show on Netflix or HBO _has_ to have
| some nudity in the first couple episodes was a bit
| annoying. I don't mind the lack of nudity in Apple's
| stuff. There's a balance that Apple falls on the "overly
| conservative" side of, though.
|
| What's adult mean to you? Nudity, violence, I dunno.
| Severance considers things like self-identity and the
| fake personalities, and fake social constructs of our
| workplaces... it seems more adult to me than a gangster
| or cowboy story.
|
| I also quite like Pluribus, it feels like actual sci-fi
| (in the same way 3 Body Problem from Netflix does,
| actually--legit sci-fi, not action heroes in space).
| thechao wrote:
| I don't want you to think I'm picking on you; but, I've been
| thinking about the MBA-bullshittism "consolidation" for a
| while. It's really a euphemism for "trust formation", right?
| It seems like we fought tooth-and-nail just 100 years ago to
| set up real antitrust laws, with real teeth... and now every
| industry is "consolidated". What's going on in health and
| seed and cars makes me seethe.
| mlinhares wrote:
| The laws only exist if people are willing to apply them.
| degamad wrote:
| If you want some considered thoughts on consolidation and
| antitrust implications, Cory Doctorow's writings are
| interesting. Some relevant examples:
|
| "Hate the player AND the game (10 Sep 2025)"
| https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/10/say-their-
| names/#object-p...
|
| "The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and
| Amazon and killed Main Street (14 Aug 2024)"
| https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/14/the-price-is-
| wright/#enfo...
|
| "End of the line for Reaganomics (13 Aug 2021)"
| https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-
| down
|
| "10 Oct 2022 Antitrust is - and always has been - about
| fairness" https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/10/play-
| fair/#bedoya
|
| And his archives for more:
|
| https://pluralistic.net/tag/monopoly/
|
| https://pluralistic.net/tag/antitrust/
| jmkd wrote:
| Cinema is indeed second behind streaming. The theatrical window
| is now so short (~40) days that audiences are happy to wait for
| the increased benefits and reduced cost of watching at home.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's only older contracts and studio holdovers that are
| preventing simultaneous release (which has already been done
| at times).
| brandensilva wrote:
| Now I'm envisioning WB movie pass combined with streaming
| subscriptions. The business models can get quite funky in
| this paradigm.
| leeter wrote:
| I believe the Academy Awards and a few other things too
| also influence this. The rules to be eligible still very
| much favor legacy studios IIRC. But, with this that may
| change? Hard to say. I know that quite a few Netflix movies
| have had theatrical runs at random mom and pop theaters in
| Cali so they could meet eligibility requirements for the
| various awards.
| jmkd wrote:
| A current example (although not Netflix) is _The Secret
| Agent_ with an award qualification run in NYC and LA
| before wider release.
| PearlRiver wrote:
| This was inevitable. Technology was bound to catch up.
| Hollywood actually panicked in the 1960s. But those screens
| were tiny. Nobody wants to see the Godfather on a cheap 1974
| Panasonic.
|
| But TV today is at least 55 inch and in crisp 4k resolution.
| A modern TV is good enough for most content.
|
| It is not Netflix that killed the movieplex. They were just
| the first to utilise the new tools. The movie theater became
| the steam locomotive.
| Retric wrote:
| 55" TV's have been out for decades they really aren't a
| replacement especially when put in a normal living space.
|
| The issue IMO is so few movies are worth any extra effort
| to see. Steam a new marvel movie and you can pause half way
| through when you're a little bored and do something else.
| sbarre wrote:
| I got a 4k 55" TV for $299 earlier this year. It weighs
| maybe 10lbs, and is super thin and fits on the wall.
|
| Large 4k TVs being this accessible/affordable for most
| households has not been an option for "decades"..
| Retric wrote:
| Screen size makes little difference for an individual
| they can just sit closer, viewing angels are the problem
| for a family where 55" doesn't cut it.
|
| 4k also makes little difference here, most people really
| don't care as seen by how many people use simple HD vs 4k
| streaming.
| dpark wrote:
| > Screen size makes little difference for an individual
| they can just sit closer
|
| This is silly. Most people don't want to sit in a chair 3
| feet from their TV to make it fill more of their visual
| area. A large number of people are also not watching
| movies individually. I watch TV with my family far more
| than I watch alone.
| Retric wrote:
| > This is silly.
|
| Tell that to every streaming on their tablets sitting on
| their stomachs. People even watch movies on their phones
| but they aren't holding them 15' away.
|
| Also you don't need to sit 3' from a 37" TV.
| dpark wrote:
| No one says the experience of watching on their tablet
| matches the experience of watching a movie in the
| theater.
|
| But this isn't the point. TVs are furniture. People
| generally have a spot where the TV naturally fits in the
| room regardless of its size. No one buys a TV and then
| arranges the rest of their furniture to sit close enough
| to fill their visual space. If the couch is 8 feet from
| the TV, it's 8 feet from the TV.
| Retric wrote:
| People watching their tablet on a couch in from of a 55+"
| TV with a surround sound speaker system says on some
| level it's a better experience. I've seen plenty of
| people do this to say it's common behavior.
|
| > No one buys a TV and then arranges the rest of their
| furniture to sit close enough to fill their visual space.
| If the couch is 8 feet from the TV, it's 8 feet from the
| TV.
|
| It's common on open floor plans / large rooms for a couch
| to end up in a completely arbitrary distance from a TV
| rather than next to a wall. Further setting up the TV on
| the width vs length vs diagonal of a room commonly
| provides two or more options for viewing distance.
| dpark wrote:
| > People watching their tablet on a couch in from of a
| 55+" TV with a surround sound speaker system says on some
| level it's a better experience.
|
| It's a more private/personal experience. Turning on the
| TV means everyone watches.
|
| > It's common on open floor plans / large rooms for a
| couch to end up in a completely arbitrary distance from a
| TV rather than next to a wall. Further setting up the TV
| on the width vs length vs diagonal of a room commonly
| provides two or more options for viewing distance.
|
| You're essentially arguing that people can arrange their
| furniture for the best viewing experience. Which is true,
| but also not what people actually do.
|
| The set of people willing to arrange their furniture for
| the best movie watching experience in their home are the
| _least_ likely to buy a small TV.
| Retric wrote:
| > Turning in the TV means everyone watches.
|
| People still do this while home alone, you're attacking a
| straw man.
|
| > least likely to buy a small TV.
|
| People can only buy what actually exists. My point was
| large TV's "have been out for decades they really aren't
| a replacement" people owning them still went to the
| moves.
| dpark wrote:
| > People still do this while home alone, you're attacking
| a straw man.
|
| Maybe? You're making blind assertions with no data. I
| have no idea how frequently the average person sits in
| front of their 60" TV by themselves and watches a movie
| on their tablet. My guess is not very often but again, I
| have no data on this.
|
| > My point was large TV's "have been out for decades they
| really aren't a replacement" people owning them still
| went to the moves.
|
| And we come back to the beginning where your assertion is
| true but also misleading.
|
| Most people have a large tv in their homes today. Most
| people did not have this two decades ago, despite then
| being available.
|
| The stats agree. TV sizes have grown significantly.
|
| https://www.statista.com/chart/3780/tv-screen-
| size/?srsltid=...
| Retric wrote:
| > Maybe? You're making blind assertions with no data.
|
| I've seen or talked to more than five people doing it (IE
| called them, showed up at their house, etc) and even more
| people mentioned doing the same when I asked. That's
| plenty of examples to say it's fairly common behavior
| even if I can't give you exact percentages.
|
| Convince vs using the TV remove was mentioned, but if
| it's not worth using the remote it's definitely not worth
| going to the moves.
| nevertoolate wrote:
| I do. I've researched the optimal distance for a smallish
| tv screen (which fits between the studio monitor stand).
| I move the tv closer when watching a film, it stands on
| hacked together wooden box like thing which has some yoga
| tools and film magazines in it - it has wheels. Crazy
| stuff. There is a flipchart like drawing of my daughter
| covering the tv normally which we flip when watching
| films.
| vharish wrote:
| Living rooms are not that big to start with. I don't
| think you actually asked anyone's opinion on this! :D
|
| Small TVs are not comfortable to watch. No one I know is
| okay with getting a smaller TV and moving their sofa
| closer. That sounds ridiculous. If there's any comfort to
| this capatilistic economy, it is the availability of
| technology at throw away prices. Most people would rather
| spend on a TV than save the money.
|
| As for the theatre being obsolete, I do agree with you,
| atleast to some extent. I think everyone is right here.
| All factors combined is what makes going to the theatre
| not worth the effort for most of the movies. It's just
| another nice thing, not what it used to be.
|
| Also, the generational difference too. I think teen and
| adolescents have a lot of ways to entertain themselves.
| The craze for movies isn't the same as it used to be. And
| we grew old(er). With age, I've grown to be very picky
| with movies.
| Retric wrote:
| 37+" isn't a small TVs. Resolution was an issue in the
| 90's but midsized TV's have been around for a long time.
|
| Also, I see plenty of people use tablets to watch stuff
| laying on the couch in front of a big screen TV. So
| viewing distance is plenty relevant.
| dpark wrote:
| 55" TVs have been available for decades but not
| affordable. I purchased a 60" plasma TV about 2 decades
| ago but it cost about $2500 dollars. Now I can pick up a
| 55" 4K TV from Best Buy for $220.
|
| The widespread affordability of large screen TVs has
| absolutely eroded the value of a movie theater.
| Retric wrote:
| A 55" Rear-projection television was way less than a 60"
| plasma TV back then. Like you I went a little upmarket
| but from what I recall budget 1080i options were well
| under a grand.
|
| What matters is the premium over a normal TV and how long
| it lasts. Spending an extra few hundred for something
| that lasts 5+ years wasn't going to break most families
| budgets. As demonstrated by just how many of those TV's
| where sold.
| dpark wrote:
| Rear projection TVs always looked like garbage. They were
| just the best option at the time. There's a reason no one
| sells them anymore.
|
| > What matters is the premium over a normal TV and how
| long it lasts.
|
| I think what matters for this conversation is how close
| the experience is to a theater. Rear projection 1080i is
| pretty far.
|
| > Spending an extra few hundred for something that lasts
| 5+ years wasn't going to break most families budgets. As
| demonstrated by just how many of those TV's where sold.
|
| Do you have some stats for how many were sold? Because I
| have hunch that sales of large screen TVs had absolutely
| skyrocketed over the past 20 years.
| Retric wrote:
| I had an awesome 1080p rear projection DLP TV in a dark
| room. A brighter screen works better in a bright room,
| but you really want a dark room for an optimal experience
| anyway.
|
| The technology got quite good but inherently took up more
| space and eventually couldn't compete on price. Though
| that also means you're sitting closer to the screen which
| made replacement flatscreens in the same space look
| smaller.
| nasmorn wrote:
| Also 220 is in the same ballpark as going to two movies
| as a family with snacks. Three would already be a
| stretch.
| user34283 wrote:
| Probably many underestimate the importance of the sound.
|
| A home theater arguably is as much about the subwoofer
| and surround speakers as it is about the screen.
|
| Especially the subwoofer has a big impact. When you feel
| the sound it's literally impactful. At other times, it
| really helps immerse yourself in the scene, even if it's
| not a typical bass sound, but like background noise in a
| busy city street.
|
| The properly configured subwoofer makes you feel like
| you're there, while it just falls flat on a regular
| speaker.
|
| That said, the fewest people have a home theater setup,
| so it's probably irrelevant to why people stopped going
| to the cinema.
| pimeys wrote:
| I mean... there's a ton of movies worth the effort. Just
| take a look into the big festivals every year: Cannes,
| Venice, Berlin... Many amazing movies.
| angiolillo wrote:
| For many of the families I know it's less about the
| quality of movies than the cost and effort of going to
| the movies.
|
| Going to the movies costs an extra hour for the round-
| trip to the theater, ~$40 for adult tickets, ~$60 for the
| kids (2h babysitter or movie tickets), ~$20 for
| concessions. Whereas watching at home on our 75" TV with
| homemade popcorn costs a tiny fraction of that, even
| including electricity and popcorn kernels and the
| amortized cost of the TV.
|
| As nice as it can be to see a good movie in a theater,
| it's typically not so much better than watching at home
| that it's worth an extra hour and more than a hundred
| dollars.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Well, I'd say that the standard movie format just isn't
| what people want anymore.
|
| The problem movies have is they have a relatively short
| amount of time to deliver a complete story. 90 to 120
| minutes just isn't a lot of time to be compelling. That's
| why some of the best movies are split into parts.
|
| Consider Andor as an example. It's some of the best media
| ever made (IMO) and it simply would not work in the movie
| format. What makes Andor work is the excellent character
| development and the time spent building and shaping the
| universe under a fascist government.
|
| Andor had no length constraints per episode. That allowed
| it to tell complete satisfying stories with the promise
| that you'll get more in the next episode.
| Retric wrote:
| Telling a detailed story is different than telling a
| compelling story.
|
| Andor isn't as compelling as the original movie or
| significantly longer than the Harry Potter series of
| movies. Babylon 5 is probably the poster child for a long
| running space opera series with a planned story arch, but
| they added plenty of filler because you don't actually
| need that much time.
|
| If anything movies tend to be better than TV shows
| because of the time constraints rather than the budget.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Eh, the current 10-hour seasons are the worst of both
| worlds.
|
| Telling a story in a "tight 90" means making very
| deliberate choices about what to include, what not to,
| and how to make scenes do double duty. Having 23 episodes
| a season lets you slow down, spend time with the
| characters that's not all focused on the season plot, it
| lets you have B-stories in every episode. A 10-hour
| season doesn't get to do that, but it doesn't enforce the
| same discipline as 90-120 minutes.
|
| Compare Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to Star Trek:
| Discovery or Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I greatly
| _enjoy_ SNW, but the characters and their relationships
| with each other are in no way as substantial as in DS9
| (or even TNG, which was much less character-focused than
| DS9).
| philistine wrote:
| Yeah, these things take a long time to shake out. We
| still have cable subscriptions because older people watch
| TV that way, but no one would tell you that linear
| television is thriving. We're only now seeing sports
| start to somewhat move to streaming services, when the
| writing's on the wall for a while.
|
| And would you entertain the idea that few movies are
| worth seeing because going to the movie theatre is a hard
| sell for audiences, and studios produce movies that try
| and adapt to that reality?
| airstrike wrote:
| You're replying to ChatGPT
| nunez wrote:
| That part. But it even worse than that.
|
| My wife and I used to be avid theater goers. We used to
| watch at least five movies a year in the theaters; more
| if you count the times we went individually. Almost all
| of the theaters we visited were high-end lounge-style
| movie houses. Think "Alamo Drafthouse," which is a poster
| child for the downfall of theaters I'm about to describe.
|
| We're the perfect demo for the movie theaters: free time
| and disposable income. Yet, we've only seen two movies in
| the theaters this year, and not for lack of trying.
|
| Theaters are in a kind-of death spiral. they're losing
| revenue to streaming, so they can't invest in making an
| experience that attracts people to the theater, which
| leads to them losing more revenue to streaming, etc.
| Companies circling the drain are perfect targets for M&A
| and enshittification in the name of growth.
|
| This is exactly what's happening to high-end theaters:
| Moviehouse and Eatery (a small chain of high-end
| theaters) selling to Cinepolis, Alamo Drafthouse selling
| to Private Equity, IPIC starting to raise red flags, and
| probably more.
|
| The end result is always the same: endless ads appear
| where mostly-ad-free prerolls used to be, food and drink
| prices go up while quality goes down, service gets worse
| as staff are asked to do more for effectively-less pay,
| and previously-super comfortable lie-flat lounge seating
| gets more and more decrepit, all while increasing ticket
| prices!
|
| All of this is even more insulting when the movies you
| pay to see are distributed by Netflix or Apple and are
| all but guaranteed to end up on their platforms in mere
| weeks, sometimes with better post-production.
|
| We used to happily pay $100+ for a night out at the
| movies seven years ago. Our experiences have gotten
| costlier and more disappointing, however. Families
| deciding to drop $1500 on a 100" TV with an Atmos
| soundbar and relegating the theaters to the past makes
| total sense to me. It's sad --- theaters are a social
| experience and have given me so many great memories ---
| but it was all but an eventuality the minute streaming on
| Netflix went live.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| Movie theaters still win on a couple fronts, but not by
| enough to overcome the downsides like the "person behind
| you chewing popcorn with their mouth open" factor. Also,
| movies are getting long enough to really need an
| intermission or two. Legs need stretching, bladders need
| emptying. If Hollywood and the theaters won't provide
| that, at least at home I can use the pause button. I'm
| looking for a pleasant evening, not a simulation of what
| it's like to be on a three hour flight.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| It's saying something that your post lists all the
| negative aspects of movie theaters and positive aspects
| of watching at home without actually specifying why
| "Movie theaters still win on a couple fronts".
| MikeNotThePope wrote:
| I remember being amazed when the Michael Keaton's Batman
| movie was released on VHS in the same year as the
| theatrical release. I had never seen a movie come out for
| home use that fast.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Movie theaters can compete by installing LED screens. My
| company has a movie screen sized LED screen and it looks so
| much better than modern digital projectors.
| airstrike wrote:
| Begone, bot
| butlike wrote:
| It's the sound that's missing from a home viewing setup
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Great home theater sound systems with subwoofers are
| cheap and readily available now. They make the home
| movie-watching experience dramatically better than it
| used to be.
| Clamchop wrote:
| Adds complexity, cost, and clutter. Meanwhile, the living
| situations of many (most?) people forbid it; no big-
| kicking subwoofers in apartments and condos, and you're
| probably keeping the volume at polite levels.
|
| And for all that, it's likely still not up to par with a
| theater, unless you geeked out on a dedicated theater
| room.
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| Home theater sound is often/usually better than the
| theater, if you actually put any effort in. Many theaters
| can't do proper Dolby Atmos with height channels. You can
| install a setup at home for ~$1500.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Disagree, I'd gladly go and watch movies in a cinema, the
| experience cannot be replicated at home, at least not
| unless you're very rich.. a 55" tv and a soundbar just
| doesn't do it.
|
| For me, the price is killing it (80% of the reason) and bad
| movies (20%)... two tickets, drinks,
| popcorn/nachos/candy/something, and we're in the 50eur+
| range. Then add the messy audiences, ads, trailer#1, more
| ads, trailer #2, another ad for some reason, and it's been
| 20 mintues of technially all ads for something that i paid
| money for. Then the movie is a total disappoint. I'm not
| into superheroes nor into pedro pascal, so most of the
| movies are out before i even buy the ticket and the rest
| are somehow... just 'bad'. Watching a bad movie at home is
| ok... you fall asleep, press stop, it doesn't matter...
| whatching a bad movie at an artsy film festival is also
| ok.. it was low budget, the ticket was 4 euros, no popcorn,
| had beer before you enter, so you can fall asleep in the
| cinema and hope not to snore. But 50 euros and all the ads
| for a bad movie is just too much.
| underlipton wrote:
| I was flabbergasted to find that there are 100" TVs
| available for sub-$1500. Only a few years ago, they were
| five figures, minimum. Combined with a decent audio set-up,
| you really can have 90% of the theater experience at home.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| ...as long as you don't connect that TV to the internet
| so it can spy on you and show you ads. That's why it's so
| cheap.
| mapontosevenths wrote:
| As you say, Walmart now sells 100" 4k TV's with HDR for
| less than the average persons tax return. They often have
| them in-stock in the store.
|
| Meanwhile most theaters are 2k, lack dolby vision or
| other HDR, have worse audio (many can't do Dolby Atmos
| with proper height channels), and are filled with people
| using their cell phones through the entire film.
|
| Cinema is either dead, or on life support.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Other issues also took their toll on movie theaters:
|
| --Ticket prices of $20 or more per person.
|
| --Jaw-dropping prices on snacks and drinks.
|
| --People talking and using phones during the movie.
|
| --30 minutes of ads before the movie. Not coming
| attractions but straight-up commercials when you've already
| paid $20 to be there.
|
| --The general slop quality of most movies being made if
| you're not a comic book or video game fan (and frankly even
| if you are).
|
| The above bullshit was enough that I stopped going to movie
| theaters more than about once per year. And then COVID
| happened.
| Frost1x wrote:
| I would argue not good enough but _better_. A home cinema
| depending on viewing distance can have superb visual
| qualify. Comfort is going to be impossible to beat to being
| at home. A lot of theater projectors top out at 4k just
| like home TVs and they're not as bright. Also information
| density is lower (it's 4k spread over a huge wall).
|
| The only shortcoming now really is if you want to view with
| several people and socialize after, it may be difficult for
| someone to accommodate a large party with good viewing in
| their home without a theater setup. And of course audio,
| audio is where theaters can still stand out. It's a pain in
| the ass for most homes to setup a good sound system, you
| really often do want a dedicated theater area which most
| aren't going to have. A soundbar helps. You can Jerry rig
| some surround speakers into any space but it's often a
| pain. So that's really the last barrier: cheap low latency
| sound that can beat a theater.
|
| For me comfort trumps the slightly degraded sound. Plus
| some baby crying or random person chatting during the movie
| can break that as well.
| jakubmazanec wrote:
| I don't know, that metaphors doesn't hold. I still like
| going to a local theaters (not multiplexes!) few times a
| year, the screen is much better than any TV, and the whole
| experience is overall nicer (beer on tap, etc.). TV can be
| good enough, but it can't replace larger screen. Few weeks
| ago I saw Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid for the first time
| and I'm glad I could see it in a cinema.
| slumberlust wrote:
| Good. Movie theaters have been anti-consumer for decades.
| Time for them to reap what they sowed.
| colesantiago wrote:
| > I don't like this
|
| please stop them.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| They have a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks."
| Sure it has a lot of crap but they also have major hits like
| Squid Games, Stranger Things, (both became cultural phenomena)
| and Daredevil.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| They're starting to up their quality. Frankenstein and Death by
| Lightning were two standout successes recently.
|
| That said, I'm more uncomfortable with the continued
| consolidation of media ownership and more outsize influence of
| FAANG tech over media.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Netflix has always had one or three stand-out projects over a
| year, but is that what we want from studios? It is like the
| tech model: 1 big success for 10+ duds (the VC show) or
| another superhero installment (the Google/Meta cash cow
| movie).
| sbarre wrote:
| You're describing TV and movies since forever.
|
| Ever year there are a few good shows and movies and a lot
| of mid-to-bad shows and movies.
|
| This is not a Netflix thing, nor is it new.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Just not true with HBO. Most of their content is
| consistently pretty good
| nebula8804 wrote:
| If WB was any good, would they have been snatched up by
| Netflix?
|
| All these studios fought the good fight against big tech
| over many years but the writing was on the wall.
|
| Hopefully a future Progressive presidency reviews all these
| mergers and breaks up big tech big time.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| Honestly Warner would have been fine if they hadn't been
| saddled with the debt that AT&T used to buy them. It
| wasn't an issue of Warner's business performance.
| truelson wrote:
| AT&T was able offload a bunch of debt on to them, and
| cash out at about what they paid in 2016. Not shabby.
| cap11235 wrote:
| At this point why would you consider WB as an entity at
| all. Thry were just another IP bundle
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| > If WB was any good, would they have been snatched up by
| Netflix?
|
| Yes because the situation of WB has nothing to do with
| their performance.
|
| In 1990s they merged with TIME publishing right before
| the internet killed all magazines. In 2000s with AOL
| right before th dot com bubble. In 2010s with AT&T who
| realised they needed a shit ton of money to roll out 5G
| so they took a massive loan and charged it to Warner
| debt.
|
| So WARNER keeps performing and the business side keeps
| adding debt from horrible decisions
| kovezd wrote:
| Lol so this means Netflix/streaming is the next trend
| going down?
| jimbokun wrote:
| By the definition of "stand out" you can't have very many
| right?
|
| If all of them "stand out" then none of them do.
| phartenfeller wrote:
| It's about all the other projects that would have had great
| quality but did not secure funding because Netflix prefers to
| fund mass-produced mediocrity. In Germany we have a saying
| "Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn".
| andsoitis wrote:
| > It's about all the other projects that would have had
| great quality but did not secure funding because Netflix
| prefers to fund mass-produced mediocrity. In Germany we
| have a saying "Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of
| corn".
|
| Did you see the show Dark?
| bookofjoe wrote:
| U.S. version: "Even a blind squirrel (or pig) finds an
| acorn every now and then."
| sparklingmango wrote:
| In parallel, they're also starting to downgrade their
| quality. In the latest season of Stranger Things there's a
| wild amount of in-scene exposition, where the characters
| explain what's happening while it's happening. I did some
| digging and learned that they may be dumbing down their shows
| because they know users typically look at their phones while
| watching Netflix and users are more likely to drop off of a
| show if they don't know what's going on.
|
| See here: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-
| radio/2025/jan/17/not-sec...
|
| Edit: I did really enjoy Frankenstein.
| josefresco wrote:
| > Frankenstein and Death by Lightning were two standout
| successes recently.
|
| IMHO Frankenstein" was pretty terrible. The makeup was awful,
| the effects were cheap, the monster... wasn't a monster! The
| entire premise depends on him being a monster, not some sort
| of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO.
| breakbread wrote:
| I was surprised at how many shots that I thought were
| terrible CGI were in fact practical effects.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > The entire premise depends on him being a monster, not
| some sort of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO.
|
| This is a misconception on a similar level to thinking the
| monster's name is Frankenstein: "As depicted by Shelley,
| the creature is a sensitive, emotional person whose only
| aim is to share his life with another sentient being like
| himself."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein%27s_monster#Pers
| o...
| josefresco wrote:
| Thanks for stating the obvious and I assure you I know
| the story well. In order for the entire premise to work,
| there needs to be this conflict or tension between the
| perception of the "monster" and the true reality of his
| humanity. This movie failed at effectively portraying
| this conflict by humanizing the monster too much. Just my
| 2 cents.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| Completely agree. The movie ruined Dr. Frankenstein's
| motives by adding his benefactor, and ruined his monster
| by removing the inner rage he felt and expressed towards
| the world the shunned him. A very, very odd decision by
| GDT. Similar to Spike Lee remaking High & Low, but
| removing the critique of capitalism and the complicity of
| the wealthy so he could make Denzel the true protagonist.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Ah, I understand what you mean. I don't think the viewer
| necessarily needs to experience the dissonance personally
| for the premise to work. That said, I agree that it could
| have afforded being less black and white, it at times
| felt like a children's movie with how plainly the message
| is communicated.
| slumberlust wrote:
| I disagree that it's a misconception. Yes, the premise is
| that the true 'monster' was the creator, but the monster
| itself is intentionally grotesque and disfigured to teach
| us the beauty on the inside lesson.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| He is unsettling but definitely not simply grotesque and
| disfigured:
|
| > His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his
| features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow
| skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries
| beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing;
| his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances
| only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,
| that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white
| sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion
| and straight black lips.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| > The entire premise depends on him being a monster
|
| Have you read the book? She emphasises how pretty all the
| body parts that Victor picked were.
| josefresco wrote:
| >His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his
| features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow
| skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries
| beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing;
| his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances
| only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,
| that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white
| sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion
| and straight black lips.
|
| As I said, the contrast between "pretty" or "human"
| traits vs "monster" just wasn't there.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > The entire premise depends on him being a monster, not
| some sort of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO.
|
| Uh, the "monster" is definitely the most sympathetic
| character in the original novel.
| josefresco wrote:
| Sympathetic sure! But the story doesn't work without the
| contrast between his outward horrid appearance and his
| inner humanity.
| butlike wrote:
| Personally, I didn't like it that much. Super long, droll,
| the casting was misstepped, and they changed the ending.
| josefresco wrote:
| It was too long.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| The creature was always supposed to be a mix of sympathetic
| and monstrous. He becomes a monster by turning himself
| implacably toward revenge, but we can sympathize with him
| for what sets him on that path. The entire premise rests
| more on _Victor_ being a monster. I thought the movie
| handled both of those fairly well. There 's really no
| living director who gets the Gothic sensibility quite as
| well as del Toro.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The movie removed all nuance from the story. The monster
| having monstrous traits is an important part of the book
| Frost1x wrote:
| Eh, I like an interesting spin on a classic. I've
| seen/heard the Frankenstein plot and small variations on it
| many times, taking a different direction is a good way to
| keep in a general universe but develop something new. If
| you're not going to come up with new interesting content,
| at least don't rehash the exact story I've heard many
| times. But that's just my preference--I really enjoyed it
| and have become a fan of Guillermo del Toro works recently
| (due to exposure on Netflix). I'm not huge critic really so
| I won't speak to artistic merit but I can at least say I
| really enjoyed it.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Frankenstein looks oddly cheap and fake with really bad
| lighting in many scenes. You can tell they used the volume
| virtual production to shoot scenes and it doesn't look great.
| afavour wrote:
| Warner makes a lot of crap too. They both make what sells.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This was clear many years ago when I opened up the HBO app
| and saw the full screen background ad for Fboy Island.
| mattmanser wrote:
| Seriously?
|
| The Crown, Stranger Things, Unbelievable, Russian Doll (wow,
| just wow), Orange Is The New Black, Narcos, Narcos: Mexico,
| GLOW, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Ozark, Nobody Wants This,
| Altered Carbon, Dirk Gently, Mindhunters, The Queen's Gambit,
| Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
|
| And that's just what I can remember off the top of my head. And
| that's my taste, there's more not to my taste like Squid Game,
| Wednesday, Bridgerton, etc. And not including the films,
| documentaries, shorts, etc. they done like Love, Death and
| Robots.
| vimy wrote:
| Interesting that most of the shows you like are +- 10 years
| old. From the early Netflix days.
| afavour wrote:
| I suspect the same would be the case for HBO. Their back
| catalog is more impressive than their current output.
| jandrese wrote:
| Discovery really did a number on HBO.
| fyrabanks wrote:
| The Pitt, The Penguin, Hacks, White Lotus, The Rehearsal,
| The Last of Us, The Chair Company--all shows off the top
| of my head that debuted or aired a season in 2025. A few
| of which won several Emmys, and all of which are
| critically acclaimed.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Industry is highly underrated
| Phelinofist wrote:
| Pretty subject to personal taste. Half of that list is
| garbage IMHO
| jerojero wrote:
| a lot of these projects were cancelled though.
|
| imo, that's the worst thing about Netflix. its not that they
| don't produce good series, its that when they do they have a
| high peobability of getting cancelled.
| paxys wrote:
| I feel like people who say this never watched a lot of TV
| before Netflix. _Every_ popular show overstays its welcome
| and gets cancelled once people get bored. That 's just how
| TV works. Netflix isn't even the worst offender.
| autoexec wrote:
| Netflix doesn't wait for people to get bored. It canceled
| Kaos the same month they released it! It had good reviews
| and a lot of binges but that didn't save it from the axe.
|
| Dead Boy Detectives was canceled less than 5 months after
| it was released.
|
| With so much competing for our time there's no way
| everyone is going to jump on every show immediately after
| it gets released and watch it several times over so
| whatever bullshit metrics netflix is using look
| impressive enough for them to give the show's fans a
| satisfying conclusion.
|
| If you watched TV before netflix you might remember that
| sometimes it took two or more entire seasons before a
| show became popular. Some extremely popular and
| successful shows were like that and would never have
| happened if netflix had put them out.
| intothemild wrote:
| I don't watch Netflix anymore. If a shows on Netflix I
| just skip it mostly because of two main reasons
|
| 1. It's going to get cancelled, so why invest my time. 2.
| I won't be able to find it.. discoverability is the
| absolute pits in that app.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| If you unsubscribe for more than a year then Netflix will
| delete your profile data entirely and discoverability
| gets _so much worse_. I signed up for a month to watch
| Star Trek: Prodigy S2 right when it dropped and was so
| offput by the "vanilla" recommendations of a fresh
| profile I really didn't see any point but to cancel it as
| soon as I finished that one exact show I knew I cared to
| watch and could find only with the search feature despite
| it being a new release.
| autoexec wrote:
| Discoverability is getting worse too. Netflix's position
| is that consumers hate having choices and that their
| customers just want netflix to choose what they're going
| to watch for them. That was the goal behind their last UI
| change which was supposed to guess at "your moods and
| interests in the moment" and only show you a small number
| of things netflix thinks you want.
|
| In an impressive bit of gaslighting they actually said
| "With bigger boxes, we're showing more information up
| front to help you make a better decision," because
| nothing gives you 'more information' like giving you
| barely any information on the screen at all. They also
| spent a fortune infesting their product with AI, but you
| still can't use it to get basic features people have
| wanted for ages like a list of everything leaving netflix
| in the next month.
|
| In reality this just lets netflix hide more of what's
| avilable from you so that they can aggressively advertise
| what they want you watch instead of what you'd rather be
| watching and as a bonus they can charge companies extra
| for visibility/not hiding their shows from subscribers.
| intothemild wrote:
| Netflix has shows that absolutely overstayed their
| welcome.
|
| Stranger things should have been one maybe two seasons.
| Lammy wrote:
| I would rather a show go on too long and let _me_ decide
| when to stop watching, like how my Simpsons DVD rips are
| only seasons 1 through 10 (including season 11 holdovers,
| so my set ends on Sneed lol)
|
| Corollary: I really miss Inside Job
| jimbokun wrote:
| Far more shows go on too long than get cancelled too early.
| CamouflagedKiwi wrote:
| Of course Jessica Jones is on Disney+ now. I think most of
| those others are still on Netflix, but it is a bit of a
| problem for them - when they don't own the content they
| eventually lose the ability to stream it, especially as the
| content owners have entered the streaming space too.
| quasigod wrote:
| The majority of that list is quite old. Have you seen what
| they're doing now? Not saying every single thing they make
| anymore is bad, but the average quality is far lower than it
| used to be.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > The majority of that list is quite old. Have you seen
| what they're doing now?
|
| Adolescence (which won big at the Emmy's this year),
| Stranger Things, The Beast in Me, Last Samurai Standing, A
| Man on the Inside, The Gentlemen, Absentia, Baby Reindeer,
| Ripley, Arcane, Squid Game, Dynamite Kiss, Delhi Crime,
| etc.
| underlipton wrote:
| You mention Arcane, and that reminds me that Netflix's
| support of animation is really undervalued. LD&R has been
| mentioned, but they also helped bankroll a ton of marquee
| projects from Science Saru (Devilman Crybaby, DanDaDan),
| Orange (Beastars, Trigun Stampede), and Trigger
| (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Delicious in Dungeon). They
| picked up Pantheon and Scavenger's Reign. They've got
| another season of Blue Eye Samurai coming. Oh, and K-Pop
| Demon Hunters.
|
| If you care about animation as either a visual or
| storytelling medium, Netflix has made a lot of the best
| movies and series of the past few years possible or
| accessible. (Having to pirate Pantheon S2 because it was
| initially only released in Australia was not fun.)
| robotresearcher wrote:
| If you listed the best movies or books or plays or albums
| or video games you could think of, they would tend to be
| older too. 99% of stuff is kinda crap, always.
|
| Survivor bias is very misleading.
| fullstop wrote:
| The first season of Altered Carbon was great. It's a shame
| that they never made a second season. ;-)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Man a second season would be so great. They could even
| recast the main character, given their personality lives in
| a brain disk. But I'd rather they didn't.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| Maybe it's because I loved the books, but I _loathed_ the
| Netflix adaptation. Possibly the worst sci-fi adaptation
| I 've ever seen.
|
| The casting was OK, but they mangled the plot and
| motivations of every character nearly beyond recognition!
| fooblaster wrote:
| I watched half of those and I haven't had Netflix in 5 years.
| it's not worth it anymore.
| stuffn wrote:
| I got netflix a looooong time ago when they still had good
| movies on there and weren't cycling. It kept getting worse
| and worse. Then I got rid of it a few years back.
|
| Nearly everything on there sucks now. It's all campy
| politically-undertoned garbage and not anything I would
| consider fun to watch or a great way to waste my time. The
| first squid games was neat. A novel concept and interesting.
| Then Netflix did what they do best and netflix-ify it into a
| political message rather than a horror film. The latest Ed
| Gein show had the potential to be amazing but ended up
| falling into the same campy, political, director had too much
| creative liberty trash.
|
| They are a tired company that has strayed from their roots.
| The Warner Bros acquisition makes complete sense because the
| entire media entertainment apparatus is capable of only
| producing:
|
| 1. Remakes of movies that are themselves remakes
|
| 2. An hour and a half movie where they try to inject The
| Message into as many frames as possible
|
| 3. A campy nearly serious movie that needs stupid jokes
| injected for the squirrel-brained morons that pay for it.
|
| The entertainment industry is in a financial nosedive because
| no one wants this garbage anymore.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Lots of good lesser-known stuff on Netflix if you wade through
| the crap:
|
| * The Devil's Plan
|
| * Alice in Borderlands
|
| * Extraordinary Attorney Woo
|
| * Brassic
|
| * Back to Life
|
| * Intelligence
|
| * Black Doves
|
| * Top Boy
|
| * Mo
|
| * The Breakthrough
|
| * Borgen
|
| * Love Death & Robots
|
| * Scavenger's Reign
|
| As well as well-known stuff like Stranger Things and Squid Game
| as a sibling comment mentioned.
|
| [Edit: replies point out some of these are bought rather than
| produced but I think it still counts for overall quality]
| fullstop wrote:
| > Scavenger's Reign
|
| Oddly enough, this was originally an HBO Max production.
| Jenk wrote:
| They licensed Brassic, it was filmed for Sky One, not
| Netflix.
| autoexec wrote:
| Same with Extraordinary Attorney Woo and a lot of
| "originals" on netflix. They'll just buy the rights to air
| something and then slap their name on it like they made it.
| That said, I actually appreciate them looking for good
| media produced overseas and buying up the rights to those
| shows to bring them to the US. It's a good thing (although
| it'd be nice if put some effort in making sure there are
| always quality subs) but it can cause some people to think
| netflix is producing more good shows than they actually
| are.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Some foreign series gems also like The Asset, Mercy for None.
|
| And some newer ones, American Primeval and the Beast in Me.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| IMO their only truly noteworthy production is BoJack
| Horseman.
| havblue wrote:
| Long Story Short was pretty good and less stressful than
| Bojack.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >it frequently produces mediocre or worse content. Will the
| same happen for Warner?
|
| HBO hasn't produced good content in years at this point. Since
| before the last season or two of Game of Thrones, I should
| think. The other brands in Warner didn't even really have that
| much prestige.
| emmp wrote:
| Succession, Hacks, The Last of Us, White Lotus and Euphoria
| have all been recent buzzy TV hits for HBO post Game of
| Thrones
| butlike wrote:
| I don't like they buried their own show, Westworld, to fuck
| the actors on residuals
| phartenfeller wrote:
| It is probably not just a Netflix issue. But it is also quite
| a philosophical question as to who is to blame. The consumers
| who watch and pay, or the ones who fund the mediocrity.
|
| It is definitely sad to see Netflix turn from their early
| phase, where they valued quality over quantity, and since
| have reversed that.
|
| I just want to see more great art that really sticks, has
| ambitions and something to tell, and values my time.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >I just want to see more great art that really sticks, has
| ambitions and something to tell, and values my time.
|
| Its out there, there just isn't great curation and in a
| world of ever increasing content more people just dont ever
| find it and accept whatever mediocrity they find.
| egads wrote:
| This is Succession erasure.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I'd have to be younger, 3 notches to the left of Lenin, and
| in a perpetual billionaires-are-evil rage mode to find it
| compelling. Got through most of the first season, which is
| a rare point to quit a show... we either quit after the
| first episode, or make it all the way to the end. Painfully
| bad, and not half as much as the stupid _Sex and the City_
| way either.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Netflix also created "Netflix lightning" where there are zero
| shadows to make lighting scenes faster but is really ugly.
| lanthissa wrote:
| i dont think this should matter, plenty of conglomerates have
| brands across quality levels.
|
| think old navy, gap, banana republic.
|
| the quality difference is important for the conglomerate same
| with netflix vs hbo, the corporate benefit is being able to
| save on costs around like amortizing the corporate side of
| things (accounting, marketing, real estate, research ect)
| dandellion wrote:
| They're fourth now. Video games are first, then books,
| streaming, then cinema, and music after that. If I'm not
| mistaken.
| jader201 wrote:
| > Are cinemas now second behind streaming?
|
| It feels like a race to the bottom. Movie and TV content
| quality has taken a nose dive in the past decade.
|
| Yes, there are exceptions, but it's hard to find these days.
|
| Maybe it's because producing movies/TV is so much easier and
| cheaper that there is now so much low quality noise, that it
| makes finding the high quality signal so difficult.
|
| But it seems like you used to be able to go to the theater and
| you'd have to decide between several great options.
|
| Now, I almost never care to go because it's only about 2-3
| times a year that _anything_ comes out worth seeing.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| the kind of person who watches a LOT of television and movies
| likes slop, it's not complicated.
|
| still different than media people PAY for. for example
| substack sells empty opinions that agree with you. it is
| totally wrong to say that slop sells. it is merely the
| highest engagement for an audience that DOESN'T pay.
|
| you could say, "engagement is the wrong metric," but if that
| were really true, tech jobs would contract like 50%. the
| alternative becomes, "would you like fries with that?"
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > it's only about 2-3 times a year that anything comes out
| worth seeing.
|
| This was probably always true, with some randomly amazing
| years every now and again, like 1972 (The Godfather, Cabaret,
| Deliverance, What's Up Doc?,...).
|
| IMDB listing shows 470 films released US in 1972. Google says
| there are ~3,900 IMDB entries for 1972 (why the 4X
| discrepancy?). The hit ratio was veeeery small even in killer
| years.
| chrisgd wrote:
| I would disagree. I think what you see is the popular, but less
| well done material. Dept Q was an original 8-10 episode
| detective drama that was highly thought of. It received no
| press but it likely showed up on your carousel. Netflix knows
| eventually you will find it but not sure they can bring you
| everything.
| wooque wrote:
| There is nothing original in Dept Q. It's British adaptation
| of Danish book and TV show.
| chrisgd wrote:
| Fair. Everything is an adaption of some IP somewhere. I
| think the most interesting job now is cranking out self
| published books hoping to get adapted, but not well known
| to US audiences and was highly rated by critics was my
| point
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| That is true*, but the Netflix series is exceptionally well
| done. Much better than the average Netflix show.
|
| * More precisely it's Scottish/American
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| HBO releases tons of great shows every year. They will
| reliably have at least one running all the time. Netflix
| releases maybe one good season a year padded by endless
| amounts of cruft.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The cinemas not already dead are dying.
|
| Cinemas were a way to share the cost of technology to show high
| quality movies among hundreds of people.
|
| Most people now has that tech at home, so there is no need for
| cinemas anymore.
|
| I went to my local cinema a few times before it closed last
| year. There were never more than 3 spectators.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > Netflix rarely creates excellent content; instead, it
| frequently produces mediocre or worse content.
|
| I'm really concerned about them ruining the Magic Mike
| franchise.
| lossolo wrote:
| I just checked and I've rated 1,788 movies and 326 TV series so
| 2,114 titles total on IMDB.
|
| I agree with this take. Netflix has some good originals, but
| it's not in the same category as HBO/WB. Most (not all) of
| their series feel cheap, shallow, unoriginal. The quality and
| hit rate just aren't the same.
| yibg wrote:
| I think such is the reality of serving a large customer base on
| something subjective like movies and TV. Most people would find
| most content not that appealing, and a small subset they like.
| The problem is everyone's small subject are different.
|
| It's like having a restaurant that serves 300 million people.
| You can try to offer every type of food there is, but most
| people may not like most of them. Which is fine, as long as you
| have something they like.
| phartenfeller wrote:
| I think you are true to a point. But great movies get almost
| universal praise with scores of 9/10 on IMDb or near 100% on
| Rotten Tomatoes.
|
| The same goes for food; there are things that are quite
| controversial, but who says no to fantastic ice cream or
| bread?
|
| But most importantly for movies, it is not the micro-genre
| that decides. People who are not into fantasy or astrology
| still love Lord of the Rings or Interstellar because they are
| particularly highly produced, where all crafts making up that
| movie are treated highly instead of strategizing and
| optimizing.
| xp84 wrote:
| I think Netflix's incentives, especially now that they have an
| ad tier, have changed.
|
| With a subscription service 10 years ago, you just need to have
| enough must-see content:
|
| - Original scripted TV series that become mainstream known
| and/or seen as prestige TV, like "The Crown," "Mindhunter,"
| "Bridgerton," "Stranger Things" etc.
|
| - "Crown Jewel" reruns with huge fanbases such as The Office,
| Friends, Seinfeld, Modern Family, Breaking Bad, Better Call
| Saul, Arrested Development, etc.
|
| - Unscripted TV series that become buzzy - like Love Is Blind,
| Tiger King, etc.
|
| Having those categories all well-stocked ensures that only a
| fool would cancel their Netflix subscription as they'll be out
| of the loop when the new season of a 'zeitgeisty' show drops.
| You don't really need all your viewers to watch more hours to
| get more money every year, you can grow revenue with a combo of
| new viewers and price increases as long as users just watch
| _regularly._
|
| I think present-day Netflix sees incentives:
|
| - to get as many people on the ad tier as possible so they can
| scale revenue with watch time
|
| - to increase watch time which is a solved problem via
| psychological manipulation if you have good ML like they do
|
| - more watch time without spending more money points pretty
| obviously to lowering cost per show as much as you can, which
| manifests as worse quality, more reality, more imported dubbed
| shows, etc. and drastically curtailing giving huge checks to
| the Matthew Weiners, David Benioffs, and Vince Gilligans of the
| world to bet on a massive superhit.
|
| So they will want to focus heavily on the unscripted category
| plus whatever they can slap together cheaply, then autoplay and
| optimize their way to growth.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I'd note they're not mutually exclusive revenue streams and
| both add meaningfully to their value. I think the reality is
| they peaked the first one and growth is in the second one.
| Subscriptions that are sticky however are much more valuable
| individually than an advertising tier user. But if you can
| cater to both and not downgrade subscriptions to ads tier you
| win in two parallel markets via the same platform. This is
| not a bad business strategy. But they need to not lose the
| subscriptions and their reason for being in the quest for
| growth or they'll see nominal growth with decline in value.
| xp84 wrote:
| > they need to not lose the subscriptions
|
| note: I hate ads so I'm not trying to manifest this, but
| can you explain why you're so sure of this?
|
| To me, it seems like they "should" (for greed reasons, I
| mean, not for my happiness) hike the prices of
| subscriptions aggressively while keeping the ad-tier
| attractively-priced, moving as many people as possible
| over. This increases ad revenue and allows more YoY growth
| if their ML can manipulate you into more watch hours in
| 2027 than you do in 2026.
|
| Sure, some people like me will probably drop Netflix before
| they'll pay $35 a month or endure ads. But the current
| delta is only $10. I suspect they can make $10 a head in ad
| revenue in a year -- and if they can make $15, they would
| break even if they lost 3 ad-free subscribers but gained 2
| back onto the ad tier. Anything better than those numbers
| would be a net gain.
| kulahan wrote:
| Major studios haven't made excellent content for a while, so
| them acquiring WB doesn't matter much. If you want to see the
| "excellent" films (i.e. I'm assuming you mean well-directed,
| well-written, well-acted, meaningful, etc.), watch film
| festivals. They have lots of fantastic stuff, and their movies
| are getting easier to access.
|
| We've lost nothing with WB except more Joker: Foile a Deux and
| Wonka garbage.
| newsclues wrote:
| Cinema needs to be a real experience, beyond just expensive
| popcorn and other people on their phone.
|
| The cinema experience lost its magic. If Netflix reimagined a
| new model of cinema, what would it look like?
| I-M-S wrote:
| "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." - Ted
| Sarandos in 2013
|
| Seems Netflix won that race.
| raverbashing wrote:
| After that complete fumble of HBO becoming "Max" they were at
| their last legs
| justin66 wrote:
| The "Max" fiasco was pretty much the strangest branding
| mistake ever. Not just an obvious mistake but it was honestly
| kind of a mystery that anyone would even be tempted to do
| that.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| "HBO or Cinemax... um, I wonder which name I should keep."
| tempoponet wrote:
| Remember when Netflix almost split its brand with
| "Quickster"? It was the dying DVD by mail service, but the
| whole debacle did nothing but confuse people.
| xp84 wrote:
| True, although Netflix knew the DVD business had no
| permanent future anyway, so they really didn't care. If
| they'd picked a less silly name like "DVDflix" or
| something, it wouldn't have become a viral story, but
| either way it wouldn't have changed NFLX's fortunes.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| As I was reading the announcement, that quote popped into my
| head. I came here to say exactly that.
| paxys wrote:
| Thing is that Netflix didn't _really_ succeed at that goal. HBO
| was and still is the gold standard for premium cable content.
| Netflix instead decided to go for the bottom 70% of the market,
| and the quality of their shows reflects that.
|
| In fact the very reason for this purchase is that they
| desperately need help on the creative side.
|
| Netflix is what it is today because all the studios trying to
| compete with their tech was an even bigger disaster than
| Netflix competing on content.
| triceratops wrote:
| I don't think the Netflix vs HBO comparison is fair.
|
| HBO was always one channel in a home. They produced a limited
| amount of high-quality content. You watch it a few times a
| week and network TV reality shows or whatever other trash the
| rest of the week.
|
| Netflix wanted/wants to be _the only_ channel in cord-cutting
| and cord-never homes. When that 's your goal you have to
| produce mostly crap _and_ some good stuff.
| hulitu wrote:
| > and some good stuff
|
| which is mostly inexistent on Netflix
| triceratops wrote:
| That's a matter of opinion. Other people all over this
| thread have shared what they think are good Netflix shows
| and movies.
| Fricken wrote:
| It's the opinion of Netflix execs, who have expressed
| envy over how much money HBO is still making off of
| decades old IP. Not a lot of Netflix content has legs
| like that, but I suppose that's about to change with the
| WB acquisition.
| triceratops wrote:
| > how much money HBO is still making off of decades old
| IP
|
| I'd say Disney is the uncontested king of making money
| off old work. If HBO was that good they wouldn't have
| been scooped up so easily.
|
| Netflix execs may be envious of the enduring cultural
| cachet of shows like _The Sopranos_ or _The Wire_. That
| 's completely different from making real money.
| xp84 wrote:
| I'm not sure Netflix execs spend much time worrying about
| cultural cachet like that. They care about popularity and
| virality but I think they'd be 100% contented to make 100
| reality shows like the one I affectionately dubbed "Sluts
| Island" that each make them $10 million than make one
| Sopranos-type show that makes them $500 million and 57
| Emmys.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I'm not sure how you quantify "premium cable content" but
| Netflix has certainly made great strides in that market.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Why would anyone want to be old HBO? Writing good scripts is
| hard and not rewarded.
| nielsbot wrote:
| The rewards aren't necessarily monetary.
| xp84 wrote:
| I'd wager that those non-monetary rewards are not what
| drive any decisions in the Netflix C-suite.
| smudgy wrote:
| Teen shows with 30 year olds by the fourth season... so that
| Steve Buscemi bit in 30 Rock will now be the norm.
| chauhankiran wrote:
| I was in one seminar, and someone asked a question about future
| to Harish Mehta (one of the founder of NASSCOM), and he said that
| big companies will become bigger for at least next 10 years.
| jmkd wrote:
| 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 up in the Middle East.
|
| Proposed tariffs will do little to stem this tide as the money
| has moved on already.
|
| In addition, traditional production methods are unsustainable and
| decision-making is opaque in an era where sustainability,
| transparency and democratisation are taking over.
|
| The main benefit to Netflix is of course the IP, but the
| traditional studio assets of WB have their days numbered.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| The value of the back catalog is still substantial for years to
| come. But you are right about the landscape changing
| dramatically for new productions.
|
| Hollywood was premised on economies of scale. Concentrate a lot
| of talent in one place and then put infrastructure in place for
| block buster productions to happen (studios, tech, money).
|
| That's being disrupted by several things:
|
| - LA and the US are no longer cheap places to be. A lot of
| blockbuster content is filmed outside the US at this point.
| Canada, Europe, and elsewhere. LA and Hollywood are still
| important but mainly because that's where the money is. It's
| not necessarily where the money is being spent.
|
| - Independent content producers self publishing content on
| platforms like Youtube and growing audiences rivaling those of
| popular TV shows.
|
| - AI is starting to drive down the cost of special effects,
| digital processing, etc. And it's probably also going to erode
| the value of needing actors at all for especially a lot of the
| less glamorous roles (think all the extras in big movie
| productions). This is a sensitive topic in particularly
| Hollywood. But not enough to delay the inevitable by very long.
|
| All this is driving down the cost of creating decent quality
| things that people still want to pay for. That's a critical
| distinction. There's a lot of ad sponsored stuff that people
| don't really pay for as well. To make money, you need quality.
| AI is working its way up the chain here, with increasingly
| better stuff. But most of it is still pretty low value.
|
| But things like soap operas, third rate series that Netflix
| bulk purchases from places like South Korea, etc. are all fair
| game for AI.
|
| Netflix adding the WB back catalog is a great move for them.
| Their own back catalog isn't strong enough to keep people and
| expanding with newly created production it is a very slow and
| expensive process. And they've had some flops and cost control
| issues. There just isn't enough there to keep me permanently. I
| tend to sign up for just a few months and then cancel. I'm
| probably going to cancel soon again. HBO did not actually offer
| their streaming services in Germany until recently. And I was
| considering trying that for a while. Now I might not have to.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Heard of one production needing to do a one day reshoot on
| something. Something that could easily have been done in LA. It
| was cheaper to fly everyone out to some European country for 3
| days and do the pickups.
|
| The business side of Hollywood has been imploding for the past
| few years. It just costs too much to film there vs other
| places. Tariffs will not change that. The tax incentives are
| gone and the must have on set is too high.
|
| Not sure how netflix is going to digest that pill they just
| swallowed. 83 billion is a lot. Is is about 3x their total
| gross per year. I do not think they can raise prices too much
| with out shedding subscribers. WB has already taken out AOL,
| ATT (recovering), and Discovery. Netflix could be next.
|
| The deal also spins out the linear TV into a different company.
| Can that company survive? Its going to be tough going. Havent
| looked but I would bet a good portion of the debt they took on
| to do the divestiture from AT&T is being pumped into that
| company.
| bsimpson wrote:
| You know that meme of Jack Sparrow riding a sinking ship to
| shore?
|
| That's how I imagined WBD. David Zaslav gets to transition
| from the leader of a reality show slophouse to one of the
| biggest power players in Hollywood, and all be has to do is
| let the slophouse sink and declare himself captain of the
| next ship.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| Hollywood was dying long before the strike.
| bigbuppo wrote:
| Remember when a company that started out making car bumpers
| bought Paramount? Those were wild times.
| standardUser wrote:
| Even NYC is having a soundstage boom. It's not just about
| cutting costs, it's also about being free to go where the
| talent and resources are, instead of being chained to LA.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| How the mighty have fallen.
| nabla9 wrote:
| With this buy Netflix becomes as big as Disney (Disney+Hulu) by
| market share.
|
| Unwelcome consolidation in the long term.
| moogly wrote:
| Definitely not great, but at least that means Ellison won't amass
| even more media control (for now). That is maybe the silver
| lining.
| Maken wrote:
| The Ellison trying to buy WB was the younger one.
| moogly wrote:
| I didn't actually specify which Ellison. But we could say the
| Ellison clan to be inclusive.
| thatgerhard wrote:
| I'm excited about getting access to the whole WB catalogue?
| octocop wrote:
| Well, for sure the price will go up too.
| legitster wrote:
| WB was another legacy media empire being run by a megalomaniac
| hell-bent on destroying their legacy.
|
| I wouldn't normally support this kind of move, but unlike the
| Skydance deal, Netflix is actually a real company that, like,
| makes use of IPs and publishes back catalogues.
|
| Things like Looney Tunes will now be in the hands of someone who
| doesn't hate Looney Tunes.
| dtf wrote:
| Paramount being the spurned suitor. David Ellison doesn't sound
| happy.
|
| https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/par...
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Consolidations like this were bound to happen. In the mid 2010s
| we had a good thing, only one streaming platform with pretty much
| every movie and tv show. Then every studio got greedy and spawned
| their own platform, forcing netflix to produce their own shows.
|
| Now you have 20 tv networks all with their own subscription and
| all losing money.
| chii wrote:
| It's a repeat of how cable networks were.
|
| This is the issue with content production being owned by the
| distributors too. It's too profitable to own the vertical
| because each piece of content is an effective monopoly, because
| to participate in culture requires watching it (piracy
| notwithstanding). Therefore, the "fix" is to regulate this
| monopoly - by making sure that monopoly cannot exist without
| cost. One "simple" way is, imho, to make content production and
| ownership of distribution strictly prohibited in the same
| entity, and to also enforce mechanical licensing of content
| (such that you cannot have content exclusives in the
| distribution platforms).
|
| Movie theatres have similar restrictions with film studios in
| the past - to prevent this very monopoly. It's high time we
| brought it back.
| abvdasker wrote:
| Yeah the best way to fix this would be to enforce the
| separation of distribution and production via the Paramount
| Decree. Separate content production from the streaming
| service itself. Get rid of the vertical integration plaguing
| the industry and we'll get better content since quality will
| be the territory on which studios have to compete with each
| other again.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Just download it as you would download a car if you could.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Daniel Ek got it right, you can all but eradicate piracy with
| good service. The inverse holds true as well
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| House of Cards is the original Netflix Original, and it came
| out in 2013. Prime started competing with Netflix the same
| year.
|
| But the other platforms - Disney+ (2019), Apple TV (2016/2019),
| HBO Max (2020), Peacock (2020), Paramount+/CBS All Access (2021
| / 2014) - are all later.
| bfeynman wrote:
| HBO has been around for way longer... HBO Go started in 2010.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > HBO has been around for way longer... HBO Go started in
| 2010.
|
| Netflix started streaming on January 16, 2007.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| >Consolidations like this were bound to happen. In the mid
| 2010s we had a good thing, only one streaming platform with
| pretty much every movie and tv show.
|
| This has been _the_ narrative about the state of streaming
| services for years now. People upset that content is too
| fragmented across services. Now we get some significant
| consolidation and people are upset. They just ignore that angle
| and find a different one to gripe about.
|
| I think this is great.
| neko_ranger wrote:
| >only one streaming platform with pretty much every movie and
| tv show
|
| doesn't this move reduce the number of streaming services by
| one? we'll see how the details turn out, but if I was paying
| for netflix and hbo max, now I only need to pay for netflix
| alt227 wrote:
| Yes but it doesnt increase the amount of shows or movies on
| any of them. This new amount of content will just feed into
| the rotating library, not create one big library of content
| always available. So in fact you are loosing providers and
| loosing content at the same time, yet prices will still keep
| going up...
| kmfrk wrote:
| Definitely the least bad outcome, but how much of this catalogue
| is going to completely drown in the horrid UI of Netflix's apps.
|
| Sometimes it feels like Netflix has too much in its catalogue
| without any good tools to sort through and filter it.
| gdulli wrote:
| I doubt that's an accident. They don't want you discover
| content you like, they want you to watch what they've put on
| your home screen.
| RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u wrote:
| Not as absurd as back when AOL bought them, but just barely so. I
| think I'll have an extra frothy latte for breakfast today.
| danso wrote:
| > _Netflix expects to maintain Warner Bros.' current operations
| and build on its strengths, including theatrical releases for
| films._
|
| If Netflix is committing to releasing WB films in theaters, I
| wonder if they'll also release shows under the WB/HBO label in
| the traditional weekly format. With the staggering amount of
| content that just exists and continues to grow, the "release
| everything at once and make people binge" model has had zero
| appeal to me. And seems quite detrimental to how the shows are
| paced -- they seem heavily incentivized to end each episode with
| a cheap cliffhanger
| FuturisticLover wrote:
| So, the big news has arrived finally
| lunias wrote:
| Just buy, buy, buy up the competition. Hope someone stops the big
| fish before it's the only one left.
| rcarmo wrote:
| That was... kind of expected. But the web of cross-interests in
| the content industry just got another trans-dimensional knot in
| its topology...
| gttalbot wrote:
| Where's the antitrust enforcement? This seems blatantly illegal.
| mihaic wrote:
| It's always great to read about how the people the own the means
| of distribution aquire also the means of production, trying to
| create a meta-monopoly. /sarcasm
|
| I'm rooting for someone on the regulary side disliking all the
| crap that Netflix produces, and just shuts the whole thing down.
| Those 5 billion they'd have to pay for a breakup fee in that case
| would have me feeling better that I couldn't cancel their
| service, since my family pesters me to keep it.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| There is no "monopoly" on either content distribution or
| creation. Amazon and Apple are both trillion dollar companies
| that have streaming services.
|
| Then there is Disney, Comcast (Peacock), Paramount, STARZ
| (standalone company), and AMC
| mihaic wrote:
| Technically, you're right. I feel like there needs to be new
| terms to describe though the staleness of the industry.
| "Oligopoly" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| How many competitors do you need? Apple, Disney, Netflix,
| Comcast, and Paramount are five major competitors.
|
| If you as a hypothetical video content creator want to get
| your content distributed to a wide audience, you have five
| companies to go to, you can publish it to any of the video
| on demand services, try to monetize it through ads on
| YouTube, etc.
|
| We aren't in the 30s anymore where the only way you could
| see content was by going to the movie theater.
|
| Before HBO Max was a thing, they were already selling
| distribution rights of content to Netflix. No one said that
| was a monopoly.
| mihaic wrote:
| > How many competitors do you need? Apple, Disney,
| Netflix, Comcast, and Paramount are five major
| competitors.
|
| I actually already agree that the number is not the
| problem. I can't articulate better, but somehow these
| don't actually feel like "competitors" in the classical
| market sense, but rather as stars orbiting the same
| center, as they're all moving in the same direction, and
| from time to time merging with one another.
| purpleflame1257 wrote:
| That was more or less the case from the advent of TV
| onwards, though.
| thfuran wrote:
| Monopoly is that word. "Pure Monopoly" is the term for the
| platonic ideal that people like to insist companies don't
| live up to and so aren't at all monopolistic.
| ecshafer wrote:
| IMO I think we are going to see Paramount, STARZ and AMC
| bought up soon. I don't think they can compete with Disney,
| Comcast or Netflix in size.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > IMO I think we are going to see Paramount, STARZ and AMC
| bought up soon.
|
| You do know that David Ellison (Larry Ellison's son),
| through his Skydance Media, acquired Paramount Global
| (including its parent, National Amusements) in a merger
| completed in August 2025.
|
| He also wanted Warner Brothers. I'm super glad that nepo
| baby isn't getting what he wants. He is using his daddy to
| talk to Trump to try stop it though:
| https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/media/paramount-skydances-
| davi...
| ecshafer wrote:
| You're right, I forgot about that. Paramount with Sky is
| pretty big.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| The legal definition of monopoly in some jurisdictions means
| anyone with a large enough of a market share able to
| influence pricing, etc in a market. A market share as low as
| 25% can be called a monopoly. Does HBO+Netflix have a 25%
| share of the streaming market? I've no idea, but possibly.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Market share matters little when most people have multiple
| streaming services they use simultaneously.
|
| It's not like Apple and Google where the majority of people
| either have an Android or iOS based phone.
|
| YouTube I believe has more viewing hours than Netflix.
| jmkd wrote:
| Netflix has had a large production studio outside Madrid for
| several years already.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > Netflix has had a large production studio outside Madrid
| for several years already.
|
| One of several around the world. Albuquerque, Fort Monmouth
| (New Jersey), Shepperton (UK), etc.
| jmkd wrote:
| Quite true thanks I was just shifting the discussion
| further east.
| hedora wrote:
| If this goes like all the other media mergers this year, the
| only regulatory scrutiny will involve Netflix allowing the
| executive branch to install a censor / ombudsman that has final
| say on their news and documentary content.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > would have me feeling better that I couldn't cancel their
| service, since my family pesters me to keep it.
|
| Sounds like they're still creating popular content.
| eightman wrote:
| I wonder what this means for DC Comics and the current crop of DC
| films. Will Netflix prefer to start with a clean slate?
| ecshafer wrote:
| I was always wondering why Netflix didn't do some acquisitions
| for backlogs with how much they spend making mediocre to terrible
| movies and tv shows.
| yahoozoo2 wrote:
| Netflix thwarting David Ellison and his push to pro-Israel-ify
| everything.
| johnhamlin wrote:
| Paramount can't be happy
| throwthrow0987 wrote:
| Is this as big as I think it is?
| bilekas wrote:
| This may be a hot take but maybe some consolidation in this
| streaming industry is beneficial, might save some people
| searching for content they want to see only to find they have to
| pay for another streaming service because right holders decided
| to launch their own streaming app.
|
| Netflix prices will probably increase though, and they will
| probably ruin a lot of golden IP like always, so there's that to
| complain about.
| utf_8x wrote:
| Surely the FTC will take issue with Netflix acquiring HBO Max?
| petcat wrote:
| Almost definitely not this FTC. And I'm not sure the FTC would
| in general considering there is a plethora of mainstream
| streaming providers outside of just Netflix and HBO Max.
|
| Apple, Amazon, Google, Disney all have their hands in that bag.
| Not to mention all the old cable providers are practically
| streaming services now too. I don't even use my spectrum cable
| box, I use the Roku app to watch live TV and access all their
| on demand library
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Until Netflix pays Trump personally $15M like Paramount did
| roguecoder wrote:
| A functioning FTC sure would.
|
| Too bad business hated Lina Khan's basic anti-trust enforcement
| so much they decided to throw in with fascism.
| jlengrand wrote:
| Those acquisition numbers will just keep becoming larger and
| larger until one day, when I'm old enough, someone will just
| acquire the only other player left in the field and Earth will be
| one single megacorporation.
| PyWoody wrote:
| AOL-Time-Warner-Pepsico-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-
| Trader-Joe's but I guess it's AOL-Time-Netflix-Pepsico-Viacom-
| Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe's now.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Whole deal sounds Looney Tunes to me. Though Warner does have a
| substantial catalog, I dumped Netflix because I wasn't impressed
| with their offerings. After Paramount took all its toys home with
| them leaving the platform without Star Trek, I had little reason
| to stay. I'm not a big TV or film buff anyway.
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| its wabbit season I guess
| zui wrote:
| Seems like:
|
| - Netflix gets the movies and contents (HBO, WB) for its
| streaming service
|
| - The rest (news, reality TV) will be spun off (Discovery Global)
| ngd wrote:
| The cycling fans among us were quite bashed around over the past
| few years getting access to cycling coverage in Europe. The were
| the glory years where GCN Plus was extremely cheap (it was too
| cheap) and the coverage was ad-free and excellent. Then we got
| bashed around to Eurosport which was fine, more expensive but
| still ad-free. Then we got moved to Discovery+. They weaseled out
| of their ad-free coverage for a bunch of races and jacked up the
| price because they bundled the cycling in with football and we
| suffered a price hike from $3-5 per month to $30+ a month, yes a
| 1000% hike, over the past 5 years.
| eisfresser wrote:
| Totally. It's miserable. We are watching cycling through HBO
| max at the moment, where it is still affordable. We get on TNT
| for the TdF because Rob Hatch. Surely it will go down the drain
| even further when the Ellisons get it.
| Hilift wrote:
| 2023: "A Party in Cannes Announces a New Hollywood Power Player".
| Something like ~300 attendees, probably $10 million. Zaslav and
| Graydon Carter co-hosted. There were rumored to be thousands of
| bottles of Dom champagne, which is probably inexpensive in bulk.
|
| https://archive.is/ITc2a
| moolcool wrote:
| https://theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-1819564741...
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| What's funny is that Onion article uses "a blockbuster $112
| billion deal" because in 1998 a figure that high was so
| preposterous it helped with the parody. They'd need to add a
| few zeros today.
| teeray wrote:
| "Dr. Evil, this is 1969, that kind of money doesn't even
| exist! It's like saying you want a gajillion bajillion
| dollars!"
| ezfe wrote:
| Inflation adjusted it would be about double since 1998 - $223
| billion, this Netflix deal is for approximately 1/3rd that
| amount.
| xp84 wrote:
| Also funny is how many of the companies listed as top-level
| parts of the conglomerates, like Viacom, Paramount, Boeing,
| SBC-Ameritech, Bell Atlantic-NYNEX, etc. have since
| conglomerated further in the years since!
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| > A spokesperson for the newly formed Bank One-Chase
| Manhattan-MCI-WorldCom said the company plans to cut 92,000
| jobs this month.
|
| They're pretty close with the headcount though
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Lockheed-Northrop-Boeing-Pepsico is an excellent joke all on
| its own damn.
| tgv wrote:
| Remember, that's just a subsidiairy of the Sheinhardt Wig
| Company.
| mortos wrote:
| Also a pretty subtle one, this article was written after
| Boeing and McConnell Douglas merged a year prior.
| scruple wrote:
| > Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the Franchise
| Wars. Now all restaurants are Taco Bell.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division
| of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as "an excellent
| move."
| qnleigh wrote:
| > Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division
| of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as "an excellent
| move."
| beached_whale wrote:
| Nice of them to start the conversations with a probably lie, that
| it will be less expensive for consumes because they can now
| bundle HBO/Netflix. Except this has never been true for more than
| enough time that for people to forget and past the time to change
| it, if at all. It will be less selection and cost more, like the
| usual.
|
| They made the comment and CBC reported on it
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/us-netflix-warner-bros...
| dr_ wrote:
| Bring back Silicon Valley?
| magicmicah85 wrote:
| Oh sweet, two of my subscriptions now reduced to one. Right?
| mrweasel wrote:
| That's my thinking. I get the argument for "reduced
| competition" but Netflix and HBO aren't competitors. They are
| just two companies in the same line of business, but with
| different production lines.
|
| I do wonder what it will do for their sports deals. HBO have
| had the rights to a lot of sports, including Tour de France and
| the olympics and is the only way to get EuroSport, as well as a
| number of TV channels, including some country specific ones.
| Rastonbury wrote:
| You don't see reduced competiton? HBO Max and Netflix are
| director competitors, post acqusition Netflix no longer had
| to compete hard with shows like Succession. The expanded
| catalog makes it even harder for smaller streamers to
| compete.
|
| On sports rights Netflix no longer has to bid and compete
| with HBO, and same story having a bigger live sport
| inventory.
|
| This is not unlike consolidation of food distributors where
| the end up wielding strong pricing power, farmers have fewer
| options to sell to and restaurants have few options to buy
| from. The middleman profits.
|
| But yeah Netflix will probably spin off Cable
| mrweasel wrote:
| > HBO Max and Netflix are director competitors
|
| I disagree. Spotify and YouTube Music are competitors,
| because I can switch freely between them, and expect more
| or less the same catalog. HBO and Netflix are supplementary
| and many will just get both, because switching from one to
| the other makes no sense. For example I can't watch Star
| Trek on HBO and the rights deals made with the studios
| ensure that I'll never be able to watch it one both.
|
| Assuming that Netflix, Disney, Paramount and HBO where
| competing, then why aren't pricing at rock bottom? There's
| zero competition and removing HBO won't change a damn
| thing, other than removing one subscription for a large
| number of people (potentially).
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Neutral here: I subscribe to neither.
|
| I found out that there's a backlog of content going back over
| 100 years (a lot of it at the public library) and have been
| happily consuming that for about 6 or 7 years now.
|
| (I still have about 4 decades to go to catch up with today--
| which will probably take me another 3 years or so).
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| and Warner Brothers owns HBO? So potentially, could we get all
| HBO shows on Netflix?
| afavour wrote:
| 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 backend infrastructure at the very least.
| sethops1 wrote:
| Surely the move now would be to rename the app to Netlfix Max
| elpakal wrote:
| And then to Max
| dwa3592 wrote:
| then to NetMax
| sbarre wrote:
| Endgame: Netflix renames itself to HBO
| Sieyk wrote:
| And then to X
| falcor84 wrote:
| If we're doing suggestions, I vote for "Maxflix"
| smegger001 wrote:
| "Maxflix" sounds like a name for a pornstudio but it is i
| guess better than the alternative of "NetB.O."
| hulitu wrote:
| Very close to Netflix's core business: violence.
| SunlightEdge wrote:
| I don't find Netflix "live action" movies to be super
| violent and there are a lot of non-violent shows. Its
| animations can be quite violent though (and those are
| good quality). From the little I know, it, like every
| other big platform, does shy away from sex. This has been
| a theme for decades - its ok to be violent but sex is a
| no no.
| butlike wrote:
| MaxNet if you want to go final form Fortune 100
| yabatopia wrote:
| To keep it more in line with other brands:
|
| - Netflix Max: basic subscription with ads, no 4K
|
| - Netflix Max Ultra: basic subscription with ads, but with 4K
|
| - Netflix Pro Max: standard subscription without ads, no 4K
|
| - Netflix Pro Max Ultra: standard subscription without ads,
| with 4K
|
| You can add a Mobile VIP package for one extra viewer outside
| your house, but only for Pro plans.
| Maxion wrote:
| There's still the one layer that comes with Dolby Atmos and
| access to the WB back catalogue
| autoexec wrote:
| Let's be honest, all the netflix plans will have ads just
| like they do now. They might not interrupt your show while
| you're in the middle of it, but you'll get ads no matter
| what. Ads as soon as the credits roll, a barrage of full
| screen ads if you pause a show for more than 10 seconds,
| full screen ads the moment you open the app, etc.
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| And for shows they produce, product placements galore.
| Like when characters suddenly started saying "just bing
| it!" to each other.
| butlike wrote:
| Netflix Plus (Netflix+) which is a side subscription to all
| of that which lets you syncopate different playback screens
| to one account, or some other esoteric value add which
| muddies the waters
| Velofellow wrote:
| HuFlixPrime was my portmanteau of choice in 2010-ish but
| mainly because I felt the coming dawn of cable company style
| pricing encroaching; more and more folks adding multiple
| streaming services to get close to what cable packages could
| offer.
|
| I still like the name.
|
| Edit: didn't Netflix have a feature called "Netflix Max" on
| the PS3 app? I remember it really liking it to find what to
| watch.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| That would connect the companies. If they're keeping them
| separate it could be an anti-trust move or more that these
| companies are going to start trading studios which has been
| seen in other industries where they trade markets, like the
| food delivery company you've been ordering from for years has
| probably changed hands a few times during that time period and
| probably name too.
| afavour wrote:
| You could make the connection a formal one. Years back HBO's
| streaming services were actually provided by MLB, they had a
| contract together. No reason the same couldn't happen with
| Netflix and Warner. Could have happened pre-merger too but it
| wouldn't have been in Netflix's interest.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| What happens to HBO Max? Will you be able to watch all that
| with a regular Netflix subscription? Seems the business doesn't
| make sense unless New co revenue >= Netflix +
| HBO revenue
|
| Also: is Netflix going to take the theatrical and traditional
| TV businesses seriously at all?
| afavour wrote:
| I imagine it'll end up looking very much like the Disney +
| Hulu + ESPN bundle. Minor savings but still more expensive
| than an individual subscription.
|
| > traditional TV business
|
| This was actually excluded from the deal. CNN, TNT, Discovery
| and the rest are being spun off into their own company.
| Presumably to wither and die.
| turnsout wrote:
| If they like money, they'll just roll HBO into Netflix and
| raise prices. I really doubt Disney's complex
| bundling/pricing scheme is helping their bottom line.
| afavour wrote:
| I dunno about that. They introduced the ad supported tier
| as a way to reach consumers at a lower price point and
| apparently it's been very successful. I don't think they
| want to lose those customers by jacking up prices now.
| turnsout wrote:
| Their prices have been inching up. I pay for the lowest
| non-ad tier, and it's $17.99/mo. If I wanted 4K & HDR,
| it's up to $24.99/mo. At $7.99/mo for the ad-supported
| tier, they could easily bump that to $9.99/mo if it
| included HBO/Hulu/ESPN.
| blairbeckwith wrote:
| Netflix has raised prices about 25% at the premium tier
| since they released the ad-free version in 2022. The
| with-ads plan has also seen increases since launch.
| true_religion wrote:
| I think it is. ESPN is a totally separate vertical than
| the rest of what Disney offers, and it's subject to
| compulsory high rate licensing.
|
| Excluding it from the bundle lets Disney be price
| competitive.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| It also underlines in the US that sports is probably the
| last interest in linear programming. It would be
| interesting to get a picture of how many US customers
| will pay for ESPN in a Disney+ bundle but not Linear
| Hulu. I'm sure Disney will be tracking it, and probably
| made a smart move making the more interesting bundle the
| one with ESPN but not Linear Hulu.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's a huge interest in sports in the US (and
| elsewhere). And broadcast rights reflect that. But there
| are also a bunch of people who would happily take a
| discount on all their other video to not include sports.
| true_religion wrote:
| And sports coverage is very regional. Disney plus shows
| African football matches in S. Africa but in the US, I
| wouldn't be surprised if it focused only on US football
| and US college teams.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't have cable or Disney+ any longer but, as someone
| who played rugby in school and still have an occasional
| interest, I find it's difficult to find in the US on TV.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| In the US, ESPN somewhat built its reputation on having
| some of "all" sports, in part because when the channel
| started it was much easier/cheaper to fill 24 hours a day
| on cable with imports and non-traditional sports.
|
| That still seems to mostly apply. In the US on Disney+
| the US sports are often front and center, sure, but you
| can still scroll the list and get European football
| matches and some Aussie Rules Rugby and Cricket all kinds
| of things that people don't necessarily think US sports
| fans would watch. I think part of what ESPN realized,
| too, is that even regional sports can have global appeal
| with the right marketing or the fact that not much else
| is being played in that moment.
|
| ESPN is also still often the home in the US of things
| like the Scripps National Spelling Bee and various Poker
| and Chess championships. This was famously mocked in the
| comedy movie Dodgeball with that movie's climactic
| Dodgeball championship happening on ESPN Ocho, the
| fictional 8th cable channel for US ESPN (which had 3
| channels at the time). That joke has come full circle in
| interesting ways as ESPN has roughly 7 cable channels
| today and intentionally uses the "ESPN Ocho" branding for
| weirder/smaller audience championships even though the
| number of people that still remember the comedy movie
| Dodgeball is shrinking and people don't remember why it
| was a joke.
| turnsout wrote:
| I could buy the ESPN carve-out, but the fact that Hulu is
| separate is just mental.
| mingus88 wrote:
| I suspect you are right, but I'm not alone in walking
| away from this trend.
|
| They lost me as a longtime customer after too many price
| hikes and low programming quality.
|
| Netflix shows are "have it on in the background" quality
| whereas HBO has released some of the best TV of all time.
| This merger has enshittification written all over it.
| turnsout wrote:
| I agree, but HBO has also gone downhill as they lost
| talent to other services. Currently the streamer with the
| highest consistent quality is Apple, which is pretty
| unexpected.
| TheAtomic wrote:
| Very hit or miss though. And withs some exceptions like
| Slow Horses, their productions feel overly produced,
| oiled by agency crossover and 360 package deals, i.e.,
| manufactured from script to screen. Even Pluribus has
| that smug sanitized gloss.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| I don't completely disagree with you, although For All
| Mankind has become a top 20 all time show for me.
| ghaff wrote:
| Honestly, in these days when pretty much everything is
| sourced from individual production companies and
| showrunners, it becomes pretty clear that while some
| studios have their own
| brands/budgets/priorities/execs/etc. there's no magic
| formula to getting it all right. It's been tried before
| and will be tried again.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Apple has the benefit of the original Netflix exclusives
| model (and the original TV primetime distribution model)
| that they don't operate their own studios and instead can
| pick and choose from the cream of the crop of the more
| expensive projects from the others. (Severance is from
| Ben Stiller's Red Hour mini-studio, Ted Lasso and
| Shrinking are from WB Television, Slow Horses and
| Pluribus are from Sony Television, Foundation and
| Murderbot are from Skydance/Paramount Television, and so
| forth.)
|
| I'm sure Apple is contributing significantly to many of
| those shows' budgets and helping them all reach similar
| quality bars, but Apple is also certainly benefiting from
| spreading that budget across multiple studios and not
| putting all their risk in (micro-)managing their own
| studio. Whereas a lot of the "streamer X has gone
| downhill" seems to be directly related to being able to
| source projects only from sibliing studios creating very
| simple monocultures of every project feeling the same and
| risking that bad or unlucky projects tainting other
| projects in that monoculture stew.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I would riot if they raise prices more.
| I'm not paying $30 to one streaming service. Criterion
| and Kanopy are working great for me as is.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| No, that was going to happen next year, but it never did
| and this deal has been agreed for the whole company.
|
| WB pitched that to make it easier for them to be acquired
| by shunting all the debt to the channels entity - but it
| was unlikely the debt owners were ever going to go for that
| as presented, there would have been quite a significant
| chance of the channels group going under and them losing
| all the money.
|
| But ultimately it turned out that enough entities were
| willing to bid now, before that split, that there was no
| point continuing to work out how to do it. Netflix will,
| presuming this deal completes, be the owner of
| CNN/TNT/Discovery at al.
|
| Now, I am very sure they will look to sell several parts of
| those off - there is absolutely no way Netflix leadership
| wants to continue to own TNT - but that will have to come
| later.
| pbalau wrote:
| > The transaction is expected to close after the
| previously announced separation of WBD's Global Networks
| division, Discovery Global, into a new publicly-traded
| company, which is now expected to be completed in Q3
| 2026.
|
| Second paragraph of the article.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| >> Netflix will, presuming this deal completes, be the
| owner of CNN/TNT/Discovery at al.
|
| ^^This isn't accurate based on the multiple articles I've
| read, including this OP article. The entities they are
| acquiring are clearly laid out. Your statement is
| complete speculation at best, and plainly false and at
| odds with the current facts we know about the deal.
| afavour wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > In June 2025, WBD announced plans to separate its
| Streaming & Studios and Global Networks divisions into
| two separate publicly traded companies. This separation
| is now expected to be completed in Q3 2026, _prior to the
| closing of this transaction_.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| They would never cannibalize an existing revenue stream,
| they'll keep them separate as long as it's profitable and
| maybe bundle for marketing (we're slowly rebuilding cable)
| lxgr wrote:
| > Also: is Netflix going to take the theatrical
|
| Hopefully? I don't have time for yet another 10 episode
| limited series (best case) that could have been a 2 hour
| movie.
|
| > and traditional TV businesses seriously at all.
|
| Do you mean the stuff that occasionally interrupts the
| regular pharmaceutical ads?
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Your model might be too simplistic.
|
| It's more like Net Margin (Netflix + HBO) > Net Margin
| (Netflix | separate HBO)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Well all the content costs don't change, and they can
| combine CDN servers anywhere it makes sense regardless of
| whether it's one service or two. So revenue and margin
| numbers should track pretty tightly.
| autoexec wrote:
| My guess is that eventually they'll merge into a single
| platform, HBO max will die off, and netflix will just keep
| jacking up people's rates until they're well above what
| netflix and HBO Max cost separately today
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Yeah to be honest i see approaching 45-50/mo coming at some
| point in the next few years easily.
| CamouflagedKiwi wrote:
| I don't know. I never really had a sensible option to watch
| Game of Thrones legally, it's a little late for that now but
| presumably this would mean it's on Netflix which would be
| significantly better for me. (I guess useful for House of the
| Dragon now). I don't think I care much about the upcoming Harry
| Potter show but if I did want to watch that, I'm not sure what
| my options would be, and Netflix seems better than me having to
| take out _another_ subscription.
|
| Obviously having one monopoly streaming service would be bad,
| but in the meantime having more of them is also not great for
| consumers since they each charge a flat fee so you have to pay
| more to see shows from different studios. The ideal would be
| something more akin to music streaming where you can more or
| less pick a provider these days, but video streaming doesn't
| seem to be moving there in any hurry.
| Arainach wrote:
| Far better for consumers to be able to binge Game of
| Thrones/Silicon Valley/whatever and cancel HBO Max than to
| have to pay twice as much for a subscription to both
| libraries to get either.
| sbarre wrote:
| Yeah until Netflix adds tiered pricing for content and you
| end up paying more than what Netflix + HBO Max together
| would have cost because Netflix is the only game in town
| for that content..
|
| I think like all media consolidation this will send a lot
| of people back to the seven seas..
| autoexec wrote:
| The seven seas can't stop netflix from canceling good
| shows though.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| Which is why it won't happen, what would the revenue
| benefit of that be?
|
| In the medium term you'll get a D+/Hulu-esque split with
| maybe a discounted bundle of Netflix and HBO Max together -
| the evidence is pretty strong that bundles reduce churn.
|
| If they ever do go to one library, it'll be because Netflix
| feel they are able to push prices to the same level as both
| services combined.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm actually a little surprised that, some discounts for
| annual subscriptions notwithstanding, the streaming
| services haven't done more to discourage short-term jump
| on/jump off subscriptions.
|
| But they have the data and I don't. I assume there's enough
| stickiness and inertia that most people are not canceling
| and restarting services all the time. I know I don't. I
| just decide I don't care enough about most content (and
| don't really watch much video or binge watch anyway).
| eloisant wrote:
| As you say, most users probably don't bother
| stopping/starting subscriptions. Besides, if they make it
| harder to cancel some users might not subscribe in the
| first place in fear of being locked in.
|
| They're probably making more with users saying "I'll
| subscribe now but cancel when I'm done watching this
| show" then don't bother cancelling.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| A big part of the reason I keep my Paramount+
| subscription month-to-month despite mostly just watching
| Star Trek on it is that they sold me a pretty good annual
| plan discount.
|
| Annual plans are a big factor in the stickiness of
| Amazon's efforts. Especially with Amazon's dark patterns
| around trying to make people forget they pay it (and
| making it hard to cancel).
|
| It is curious there aren't more explorations in
| increasing stickiness. Though admittedly cable's biggest
| trick (long term contracts) is maybe thankfully out of
| reach for most of the streamers.
| ghaff wrote:
| Bundles, where they exist, are a big stickiness factor.
| Especially during COVID, getting stuff delivered to my
| door before I'd have gotten around to the hassle of going
| to the store, was a big factor in making Prime more
| useful to me than it already was.
|
| Apple is less pronounced but I'm very much in the Apple
| ecosystem so TV+ isn't really a big adder.
|
| >Though admittedly cable's biggest trick (long term
| contracts) is maybe thankfully out of reach for most of
| the streamers.
|
| Yeah. You make too much of an on/off ramp for just a
| streaming service and that's a hard pass for me.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| As much as people complain, maybe if I was still 22 and
| dirt broke, I'd do something like that, but more likely I
| just wouldn't watch TV. I didnt own a TV back then and it
| was fine. Now, sure, I don't exactly like being nickle
| and dimed from a pure intellectual perspective, but these
| streaming services are what? Like $15 a month a pop?
| That's 1/40 the cost of groceries. It's annoying but
| makes no difference and isn't anywhere near worth the
| hassle of starting and stopping. If it was a $120 a month
| gym subscription or the old cable bundles I used to pay
| $200 for, then it's getting to the point that it's worth
| caring about.
|
| The stickiness is probably just that. Even as they raise
| prices, it's still less than we're paying for pretty much
| anything else. Gas, electricity, food, housing. Cut
| Netlix and well great, I just reduced my monthly spend
| from $5000 to $4980. Really making a dent there. I can
| retire comfortably now. It's almost as patronizing as the
| old avocado toast thing. Avocado toast might be
| overpriced and nowhere near worth it, but it isn't the
| reason anyone is broke.
| ghaff wrote:
| I do keep a vague eye on subscriptions/credit cards/etc.
| that I'm really not getting value out of over the course
| of months.
|
| But, yes, if you're either poor or optimizing points on
| an airline or whatever is sort of a hobby, then sure. But
| otherwise, it's just not very interesting to many of us
| and involves mental overhead we can just live without.
| skywhopper wrote:
| lol at the idea that Netflix would ever produce something as
| high-quality as GoT or HotD. Those days will soon be over.
| afavour wrote:
| The Crown is absolutely a prestige TV show. Stranger Things
| is also high quality and high budget. You could probably
| include Bridgerton in there too, it's not my kind of show
| but I can still recognize that it's a well put together
| one.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| The problem is all the crap kills the prestige. HBO
| remains what HBO is because they don't put out 600 other
| shows besides Game of Thrones that are utter garbage.
|
| Netflix is the Walmart of entertainment at this point.
| Yeah you can find basically anything there- and VERY
| occasionally, you'll find something damn good- but you're
| wading through a sea of mediocre shit to do so.
|
| And like, personally I unsubbed forever ago because I'm
| not interested in subsidizing all the garbage to get the
| occasional Frankenstein. Meanwhile I've maintained an HBO
| subscription for that entire time.
|
| Obviously I am but one data point here and I know my
| opinion is in the minority, but yeah. I don't pay
| attention much to Netflix.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| The HBO Max that had "Fboy Island" yeah?
|
| HBO was never what you thought it was, and HBO Max
| definitely wasn't.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| HBO remains what HBO is because they don't put out 600
| other shows besides Game of Thrones that are utter
| garbage.
|
| Here is a list of hundreds and hundreds of HBOs work over
| the past several decades. How many do you even recognize
| the name of? 20%?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HBO_original_progra
| mmi...
| SunlightEdge wrote:
| Its subjective, and full of nuance, but I do feel that
| Netflix has its own style that is very different to HBO's
| style. Consider the witcher vs game of thrones or black
| mirror pre-netflix vs post netflix. Its not black and
| white though, as Netflix animations (Castlevania, Pluto
| etc.) are amazing TV, but personally I would much rather
| watch a HBO show than a Netflix one - especially if its a
| fantasy/science fiction one where Netflix's style isn't
| one I find appealing.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Nothing that Amazon has produced comes even close to what
| HBO produced between 1995-2015. Netflix programming is
| cargo cult TV.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Until Disney killed it because "they didn't like the
| numbers" the Avengers series, including Dare Devil, Luke
| Cage, etc were highly regarded by all my friends at the
| time. I don't know why Disney screwed that up colossally
| outside of wanting the show within Disney Plus.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Lol I wrote Avengers instead of Defenders, not sure why
| the downvote, but it was a really good series of shows,
| it was highly recommended on Netflix at the time any time
| a new season came out. Disney just wanted to pull it into
| Disney Plus that much is obvious considering they've only
| just started to do that, with the same cast.
|
| Not only this, but there's also Stranger Things, which
| imho had too many long breaks between seasons. Black
| Mirror was another one that was really popular. Squid
| Game as well.
|
| Narcos is another and one of my personal favorite shows
| of all time, really captures a lot of details that I had
| no idea about as known by the DEA agents who went after
| some of the biggest drug lords of our time.
|
| They also fund and produce some of the best high quality
| documentary series.
|
| https://screenrant.com/marvel-netflix-tv-show-
| cancellations-...
| gopalv wrote:
| > produce something as high-quality as GoT
|
| Netflix is a different creature because of streaming and
| time shifting.
|
| They don't care about people watching a pilot episode or
| people binge watching last 3 seasons when a show takes off.
|
| The quality metric therefore is all over the place, it is a
| mildly moderated popularity contest.
|
| If people watch "Love is Blind", you'll get more of those.
|
| On the other hand, this means they can take a slightly
| bigger risk than a TV network with ADs, because you're
| likely to switch to a different Netflix show that you like
| and continue to pay for it, than switch to a different
| channel which pays a different TV network.
|
| As long as something sticks the revenue numbers stay, the
| ROI can be shaky.
|
| Black Mirror Bandersnatch for example was impossible to do
| on TV, but Netflix could do it.
|
| Also if GoT was Netflix, they'd have cancelled it on Season
| 6 & we'd be lamenting the loss of what wonders it'd have
| gotten to by Season 9.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Just have one subscription at a time and then pirate the rest
| of it.
|
| They all had their chance. They blew it.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The comment you're replying to said "legally".
| butlike wrote:
| It's legal until you get caught. Schrodinger's download.
| afavour wrote:
| That is in no way true
| philipallstar wrote:
| > They all had their chance. They blew it.
|
| This is so silly. It's like saying "Sweet manufacturers all
| had the chance to sell the same sweets, and they blew it.
| So I just nick most sweets." Just say "I don't like paying
| for things and can get away with this, and my ethics only
| work in public or when I'm forced to obey them." And then
| we're done.
| scottyah wrote:
| I agree overall, but it is a lot different when each
| further thievery requires no additional work (since
| you're not streaming from them). It'd be more like paying
| someone each time you walk in your door, for the lifetime
| of the door. In this case they can also take the door off
| anytime they want, put ads on it, or do pretty much
| whatever they want.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Are you saying I wouldn't steal a car, or a handbag, or a
| television, or a dvd? So piracy is a crime?
|
| Are you really making that argument in 2025? You must be
| very young.
|
| Bittorrent didn't become popular because no one wanted to
| pay for things. In fact people stopped when Netflix was
| good. I stopped, all my friends stopped. It was no longer
| a mainstream thing. We even put up with a few price
| hikes. Then 1 service became whatever and people started
| torrenting and streaming sites started popping up.
|
| Everyone was willing to pay for convenience. No ones
| wants to pay even more for in convenience.
|
| You'll note music piracy is not really a thing anymore.
| Thanks Spotify.
| hephaes7us wrote:
| Sweets have a cost, and constitute a straightforward loss
| to someone if stolen. Digital copies of a file are
| clearly different.
|
| There's plenty of valid arguments against piracy, but
| equating it to zero-sum material theft is not one of the
| strong ones.
| afavour wrote:
| This argument has always confused me. Yes, it's true that
| a digital copy of a video can be duplicated endlessly in
| a way a physical item cannot. But... so?
|
| It's an item available for purchase at a price. If you
| take it without paying that price then the seller is out
| money they would otherwise have received. If everyone
| pirated Netflix's output then they would have to shut
| down, just the same as a grocery store would if everyone
| stole their produce. The only reason that doesn't happen
| is because piracy is a minority activity.
| hephaes7us wrote:
| Personally, I can pay for media, so I believe it's
| ethical that I do. If someone in my position chooses not
| to pay, there's a pretty solid argument that the media
| company is out money they could have had otherwise.
|
| However, not everyone who pirates something was ever
| going to buy it in the first place. A huge portion of the
| world lives in sufficiently deep poverty that the option
| was either: have the thing for free or not have it at
| all. These folks don't represent lost sales.
|
| Luckily though, "price" is not the same thing as "cost".
| If they watch for free, it doesn't cost us anything.
|
| Just out of curiosity, how certain are you that "piracy
| is a minority activity"?
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Seriously how old are some of the people responding? An
| entire generation already went through this.
|
| Bootleg DVDs, pirated files were common place. I could
| literally go out whenever and spend change on a VCD. Or a
| friend would have a copy of whatever movie on their HD.
| I'd go to anime screenings where people would bring their
| RAID arrays full of fan subbed anime. Music was pirated
| all over the place. Digital players just made music
| piracy more common. Everyone used BitTorrent. Everyone.
| People got sued. ISPs used to send out letters saying "we
| think you're torrenting. Please stop or we'll cancel your
| service".
|
| You know what didn't happen? The entertainment industry
| didn't collapse. You know why? Because none of these
| people were never going to spend money on entertainment.
| You know what I did if I couldn't afford to see a movie
| or get a new CD in college? Something else.
|
| When Netflix started streaming, they fixed all this. We
| all stopped BitTorrenting because Netflix was easier.
| They know how to fix it and they fixed it for a while.
| Sell us convenience. But I'm not paying and managing 5
| subscriptions.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Or...don't pirate and rotate streaming services. Just
| because a new show drops doesn't mean you need to watch it
| next week
| NoGravitas wrote:
| There are certainly people who do this with free trial
| subscriptions when a show they want becomes available.
| meowface wrote:
| Maybe there are licensing restrictions or other things that
| prevent it, but wouldn't it make more sense to combine HBO Max
| and Netflix into a single app? Or at least make all HBO Max
| content also available in Netflix (and then eventually sunset
| HBO Max). That would make a Netflix subscription a much more
| compelling purchase for a ton of people.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| They might make less money with one super subscription than
| two separate ones.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yeah, I can easily see something like 2 separate at
| $20/month vs 1 super at $35/month (make-believe figures).
|
| Assuming all WB and Netflix customers move to the super
| platform, that's a loss for Netflix (assuming the super
| platform doesn't significantly reduce their costs).
|
| And the $35 might be more than some set of current Netflix
| subscribers want to pay, so they drop the service, so an
| even bigger potential loss.
|
| Certainly, I have no desire to subsidize sports fans via a
| higher Netflix super package.
| philistine wrote:
| We're reinventing cable!
| butlike wrote:
| Yup. All of them combined would probably be ~$100-120/mo.
| which is, lo and behold, the price of a cable package
| parineum wrote:
| With inflation, it's much cheaper.
|
| Still, the real issue is one that both cable and
| streaming services don't solve.
|
| People don't want to pay for what they don't watch. Both
| streaming and cable have the price of everything they own
| and produce built into the price. When you subscribe to
| either, you're subsidizing a bunch of stuff you don't
| care about.
|
| People don't want to pay $20 a month to watch stranger
| things in oreer to subsidize a bunch of stuff they don't
| watch. It was the same with cable. Netflix is just one
| giant cable bundle, it always has been.
| ghaff wrote:
| The irony is that a lot of people complained loudly about
| the cable bundle then complained loudly about streaming
| service fragmentation even when it at least offered a
| choice to cut their monthly bill.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I don't see how this is ironic at all. Doesn't this just
| make sense that people are complaining about the same
| business model? Or are you saying people should be more
| grateful we don't have to watch ads anymore?
| Larrikin wrote:
| When Netflix started losing shows did they lower their
| price to allow users to sign up for competing services?
| The price just went up for everyone in reality.
| ghaff wrote:
| No but there's very little I deeply care about watching,
| including live TV. I definitely pay less for video
| content than I was paying 5 years or so ago. Netflix has
| been on my bubble for a while. We'll see what happens
| with this news.
|
| And I already have Amazon Prime and Apple TV+ through
| other bundles I have for other reasons. We'll see.
| alistairSH wrote:
| There was a brief happy period where you could ditch
| cable ($100/month or whatever), subscribe to ~2-3
| streaming services (~2-3x $20/month), save a decent
| amount and still have a good selection of content. And
| bonus, you didn't have any ads.
|
| Then the fragmentation got worse, as all the legacy media
| companies rolled out their own platforms, and it suddenly
| became ~5x$20/month to get the same content. And ads got
| added back into the mix, even after subscription fees.
|
| These days, I actively switch platforms every few months.
| It's a bit annoying, but beats the old cable days.
|
| My biggest complaint today is the fragmentation across
| some sports. Take pro cycling (TDf, etc) - it's split
| across 3-4 platforms in the US. So, I need to get
| FloSports, Peacock, and a few others. I wish I could
| either get individual events OR a bundle that included
| everything. Oh well, I'll pay for a few and pirate the
| Sky or continental feeds for the rest.
| buildbuildbuild wrote:
| Cable failed at millennial+ user experience.
|
| Many on-demand viewing experiences still play ads through
| atrocious "cable box apps."
|
| Entrenched cable bureaucracy disrupted by app culture.
| For the better.
|
| Netflix also will some day be disrupted, as the wheel
| turns.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| We deserve to divorce the content from the service. Can
| you even purchase Netflix content?
|
| I've just gone cold turkey from watching any streaming tv
| or movies until the situation improves. Blu Ray works
| better than ever.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm regularly a bit surprised at how many people don't
| even consider purchasing a la carte content or Blu Rays.
| For films it's often a pretty reasonable option for
| occasional viewing.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| I can imagine an internal analysis that says:
|
| Move show X, Y, and Z from Netflix to HBO Max because those
| profiles are likely to add the second subscription.
|
| ---
|
| Piracy seems like the only thing that keeps
| prices/practices in check.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| I wonder how much piracy really impacts their pricing
| strategy? I honestly don't know.
| pragma_x wrote:
| Everything about these big moves in the streaming space is
| basically to re-create the "good old days" of cable
| subscriptions and pay-per-view.
|
| I think we can expect HBO streaming to continue as a
| premium subscription for movies and high-production-value
| shows. That would let everything else to land on Netflix
| with no conflict.
| observationist wrote:
| Pirate everything.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Hulu and Disney Plus have taken centuries in this endeavor.
| There's a lot of content licensed to Hulu that is not
| necessarily licensed to Disney Plus, though Disney Plus seems
| to be showing more Hulu content, but I assume it has to do
| with licensing.
| johneth wrote:
| > Hulu and Disney Plus have taken centuries in this
| endeavor.
|
| Only in the US. Everywhere else Hulu has always been
| integrated into Disney+).
| dagmx wrote:
| Part of that is because Disney didn't outright own Hulu
| until recently. It was a joint ownership.
| consp wrote:
| Easy way to get rid of the few remaining "lifetime 50%
| discount" HBO Max subscriptions.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Oh no I am reminded of my dead physical Rolling Stone
| lifetime subscription!
| torh wrote:
| I quit my 50% discount after realizing that if I don't
| watch it anyways.
|
| Funny thing though. When I cancelled my subscription, they
| offered me 50% off for a month or something like that.
| ekropotin wrote:
| That would be amazing if we could watch both Netflix and HBO
| Max content at the price of one subscription. At least for
| me, these two platforms covers 95% of my video content needs.
| slenk wrote:
| Yeah but there is 0 chance that the cost would remain
| similar to what it is now
| jandrese wrote:
| "The price of one subscription" being the price of Netflix
| plus the price of HBO. Streaming is turning back into cable
| where everything is trapped in one bill, no matter how
| expensive and uninteresting some part of that bill is.
|
| Having Discovery's awful content push out quality HBO
| content was already a major blow.
| ekropotin wrote:
| Well, I guess one more significant price jump would be a
| sign to finally replace streaming with reading
| oblio wrote:
| > Netflix and HBO Max content at the price of one
| subscription
|
| Yes, the price of one subscription. I think some cable
| packages in the US are $200 per month?
| ekropotin wrote:
| The cable thing in US is something Im struggling to wrap
| my mind around. I can't imagine someone deliberately
| paying so much money for such a bad content.
|
| The only explanation I can think of is that most of the
| subscribers are elderly folks who signed up long time ago
| and didn't bother to look into current bills.
|
| Also maybe some ardent sport fans?
| chaboud wrote:
| Your last point is the stronger one. Live events,
| including sports, are a heavy driver of these
| subscriptions.
|
| Another is broadband deployment. Choice is low in many
| parts of the country, and bundled service offerings are
| frequently priced near the "internet only" offerings to
| nudge customers into a "might as well" posture.
| prirun wrote:
| Internet/TV bills can be negotiated, but it is usually
| something you have to do annually and most people,
| rightly so, hate it. The companies make it hard to do, so
| most people would rather pay an extra $5-10 rather than
| spending an hour or two on the phone. After 5-10 years,
| those fee bumps really add up.
|
| The only way to keep Internet/TV costs low is to threaten
| to cancel or switch every year, and actually be willing
| to do it. For some that isn't an option because there is
| only 1 provider, and others I've talked to hate that idea
| because you have to learn a new channel lineup. It's
| amazing how much people will pay to not be slightly
| inconvenienced.
| ekropotin wrote:
| The question is why to keep TV subscription at all? Is
| there some very unique content which is not available on
| digital?
| BigGreenJorts wrote:
| Live sports and public television was kind of the last
| bastion in my mind, but the former is piecemeal being
| acquired by streaming the platforms and the latter is
| largely being put on the internet for free.
| jimbokun wrote:
| For me it's sports.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| well, you'd get it at price of twice of current
| subscription
| JadeNB wrote:
| Maybe we could come up with another ludicrous suite of names
| for HBO/HBO Go/HBO Max once it's merged with Netflix.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Not attacking you in particular, but I've always hated how we
| talk about "licensing restrictions" as if they're some kind
| of vague law of nature, like gravity. Oh, Studio X can't do
| Y... Because Licensing. "Licenses" are entirely conjured up
| by humans, and if there was an actual desire by the people
| who make decisions to change something, those people would
| find a way to make the "licensing restrictions" disappear.
| Reality is, the people making these decisions _don 't_ want
| to change things, at least not enough to go through the
| effort of changing and renegotiating the licenses. It's not
| "licensing restrictions" that is stopping them.
|
| Same always comes up when we talk about why doesn't Company X
| open source their 20 year old video game software? Someone
| always chimes in to say "Well they don't because of
| 'licensing issues' with the source code." as if they were
| being stopped by a law of physics.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| The issue is that Netflix doesn't control those
| restrictions, the content creators (well, rights holders)
| do, and their incentives don't always align.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, what I mean by "people who make decisions" is
| everybody involved: studios, distributors, rights
| holders, and the maze of middlemen who have inserted
| themselves into the business: If all of them decided that
| more money could be made, if not for those pesky
| licenses, the "licensing problems" would immediately
| disappear.
| jimbokun wrote:
| And if any of them decide they are better served by the
| current arrangement, the licensing problems remain.
|
| You seem to be making incredibly banal observations.
| roguecoder wrote:
| That's what governance is for, though. These laws can be
| changed to require collaboration or remove the artificial
| monopolies.
|
| They haven't been because the people being hurt by it are
| way less organized than the people benefitting, not
| because things couldn't ever change.
| flakespancakes wrote:
| I'm with you in spirit, but I think you are underestimating
| how wide and complex the dependency trees can be in content
| licensing. And simplifying those licensing structures often
| mean removing control from individual artists, which we
| tend to consider a Bad Thing.
| roguecoder wrote:
| Much like local control of zoning, that is an principle
| that many folks take on faith as being "good" despite all
| the actual outcomes.
|
| In collaborative productions it is almost never the
| "individual" artist anyway: it's whatever giant
| conglomerate bought whatever giant conglomerate that paid
| everyone involves as little as the union would let them
| get away with.
| ezconnect wrote:
| Licensing is really complicated and requires lot of paper
| work. The best example is the music soundtracks of old TV
| series. They even get substituted if they don't get the
| proper license to stream them. So some old show get new
| soundtrack or background music and they don't feel the
| same.
| BigGreenJorts wrote:
| Noticed that with a lot of intl shows Netflix gets the
| rights to. They so often have these awful chipper toony
| music
| ynx wrote:
| Speaking as someone who once worked at a company where
| these were real issues that came up - it's very often the
| case that intermediate parties in the contracts have
| dissolved.
|
| Renegotiating the contracts would require lengthy and
| expensive processes of discovering the proper parties to
| actually negotiate with in the first place.
|
| Although the contracts that were already executed can be
| relied upon, it truly is a can of worms to open, because
| it's not "Renegotiate with Studio X", it's "Renegotiate
| with the parent company of the defunct parent company of
| the company who merged with Y and created a new subsidiary
| Z" and so on and so forth, and then you have to relicense
| music, and, if need be, translations.
|
| Then repeat that for each different region you need to
| relicense in because the licenses can be different for
| different regions.
|
| The cost of negotiation would be greater than the losses to
| piracy tbh.
| jquery wrote:
| That's why I strongly believe there needs to be term
| limits on these kinds of contracts. Copyright is supposed
| to benefit the consumer, after all.
| roguecoder wrote:
| Copyright has never been about benefitting consumers. Or
| artists, for that matter.
|
| It was invented to protect publishers (printing press
| operators). That continues to be who benefits from
| copyright. It's why Disney is behind all the massive
| expansion of copyright terms in the last hundred years.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Yes, thank you, not enough people know this. Though, it
| should be inferable from the name. "Copy right" to mean
| "I/we retain the right to make copies". Certainly sounds
| like a publisher right to me.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Reality is, the people making these decisions don't want
| to change things, at least not enough to go through the
| effort of changing and renegotiating the licenses.
|
| Which is a perfectly sensible reason for a business
| decision.
|
| > "Well they don't because of 'licensing issues' with the
| source code." as if they were being stopped by a law of
| physics.
|
| So laws should just be ignored? Issues created by human
| social constructs are very real.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| We can change the laws. Radio stations don't have
| "licensing issues" with playing songs.
|
| From another angle, if copyright were more like it was
| originally in the US, every single show I watched as a
| kid would be in the public domain, since I haven't been a
| kid for 28 years.
| mystraline wrote:
| Radio is a lot simpler. Used to work in that realm back
| in the Napster and Kazaa days.
|
| You have a broadcast station. You know that estimated 30k
| people are listening. You sell those numbers to
| advertisers. Now you play a song 1x, you record that
| fact. At the end of the month, you tally up 30k users for
| that artist and you cut a check to ASCAP or BMI. Thats
| it. You just keep track of how many plays and your
| audience size, and send checks monthly itemized.
|
| They were downloading pirate Britney Spears over Napster
| and playing it on air. And since 100% royalties are paid
| for, was actually legal. Not a lawyer, but they evidently
| checked and was fine.
|
| I'd like something similar for video. Grab shows however,
| and put together the biggest streaming library of
| EVERYTHING, and cut royalty checks for rights holders.
| But nope, can't do that. Companies are too greedy.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That shows how tech monopolies are bad for content
| creators.
|
| Like Spotify monopolizing music streaming, and now
| creators have the choice of getting virtually nothing
| from Spotify or literally nothing by avoiding Spotify
| (unless you're already Taylor Swift).
|
| With radio stations, no single radio station could really
| hold you over a barrel, because there were still a lot of
| other radio stations to work with.
| roguecoder wrote:
| Disobeying unjust laws is a moral imperative. Working
| around laws that hurt society is good for society.
| Changing laws that aren't benefiting society is the sign
| of a functioning government.
| jimbokun wrote:
| And I assume you are the final authority on which laws
| are unjust?
| sleepybrett wrote:
| The discovery+ app is still operating in some regions
| because of licensing 3.5 years since all the discovery
| content got integrated into hbo-max.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > wouldn't it make more sense to combine HBO Max and Netflix
| into a single app
|
| I currently pay $20 something for Netflix every month and $10
| for HBO Max a couple of months through the year when I'm
| binging a show from HBO. I as a consumer would prefer to keep
| it that way. I absolutely do not have the appetite to pay
| $30+ a month if the two are combined.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| The thing is, HBO _the brand_ is the valuable thing.
| hephaes7us wrote:
| I'd rather not even have to sift through all the stuff on
| Netflix to get to the stuff from HBO.
|
| And I definitely don't want to pay double for one big
| catalog.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Good news is more Warner Bros content, bad news is, only 2
| seasons worth per IP. Netflix drives me up a wall with how
| often they cancel interesting shows, reminds me of SyFy, you
| find something interesting and then they just cancel it.
| Sometimes people take a break from watching a show, but they
| always come back. At least end it cleanly damn it. It's why I
| don't bother with Netflix original shows unless they've got
| like four seasons.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > 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.)
| yojo wrote:
| Netflix was also still in the "grow users at all cost" phase.
| They have since moved to "grow revenue at all costs."
|
| Everyone likes a service when it's subsidized by VC dollars.
| Until they inevitably start turning the screws.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Everyone likes a service when it's subsidized by VC
| dollars. _
|
| Netflix went public in 2002. It was +8 years later that the
| streaming-only service was launched in 2010. The digital
| streaming wasn't "subsidized by VC".
|
| Netflix had more content from everybody back then _because
| the other studios licensed their content for cheap prices
| to Netflix_. But those studios then realized that Netflix
| was growing rapidly on the backs of their content. Once
| those multi-year contracts expired, studios like Disney
| didn 't renew with Netflix and instead, started their own
| platform (e.g. Disney+).
| shermantanktop wrote:
| These content library contracts are only for a couple of
| years, and each time one lapses, some terms get
| negotiated. Nobody in the streaming industry is
| successful because they have a long term lock on someone
| else's content. It's all about eyeballs and margins.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Netflix had a 4 year deal with Starz, which is where a
| significant chunk of their early streaming content came
| from (Including all the Disney films).
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Sure, that was very early though. You could argue that
| was crucial for establishing their brand, but the
| industry has caught up and doesn't do that very much now.
| gspencley wrote:
| You're not wrong, but that doesn't mean they weren't
| still in "growth" phase.
|
| Their pricing, and their doubling down on account sharing
| policies over the last few years have shown that they are
| no longer in a growth phase.
|
| I cancelled my Netflix account a few months ago because I
| had gotten the "You're not accessing this from your
| typical location" blocker. Even though I was trying to
| watch from my permanent residence and I was the account
| owner / payee.
|
| The reason that happened was that my wife and I own two
| properties. We are happily married, not separated, but we
| just like our space... especially with two adult
| daughters who still live at home with one of their
| significant others also living in the house.
|
| We are a single family "unit" but have two locations.
| Furthermore, my wife has sleeping issues and was using
| Netflix at night in order to fall asleep. To have to get
| me to check my email for an access code, was a total deal
| breaker since I would be fast asleep. So that cut her off
| from her typical usage of Netflix.
|
| And the reason Netflix thought that I was accessing the
| service from a different location was that I hardly ever
| watched it. Every time I'd pull it up, I would spend more
| time scrolling for something to watch than actually
| watching anything.. and typically I'd just give up and go
| watch a 30m YouTube video instead.
|
| So I was paying more, receiving less ... mostly had the
| account purely for my wife and daughters who watched it
| the most ... and then the final deal breaker was
| logistical barriers preventing me from being able to use
| what I'm paying for.
|
| Fuck Netflix.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Agree, but I think they moved away from growth to this
| not because they lost investor money / vc demands but
| because they started losing a lot of licensing deals and
| content, and had to shift from redistribution to making
| more and more originals with capital investment cost and
| etc.
|
| Slightly different reasons for enshitiffication - if
| Spotify lost half of their catalogue suddenly they might
| move in the same way I guess.
| tim1994 wrote:
| The problem is content exclusivity. It would be great if all
| the content or at least most would be available on all
| platforms. At least eventually. That would be great for
| consumers. Mergers like this typically not.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| Like we had for music on the radio, compulsory licensing
| autoexec wrote:
| We could do that by limiting copyright to just 10-14 years.
| All platforms could have all that content forever without
| paying a dime. New stuff and exclusives would still be a
| draw to attract people to one platform or another.
| joelwilliamson wrote:
| Give 10 years of copyright for free, then a $1000 fee for
| the next decade, and make every subsequent decade 100x
| more expensive.
| autoexec wrote:
| Nah, there's no reason why trillion dollar companies
| should be allowed to pay _anything_ to keep our shared
| culture locked up. Doing so only hinders innovation and
| the creation of new works. 14 years was long enough back
| when global distribution was unimaginable and any
| distribution at all was highly expensive.
|
| Today you can instantly distribute media to the entire
| planet at near zero expense. If you can't make money
| after a decade you have only yourself or your product to
| blame. Also, it's not as if once something goes into the
| public domain all income stops either. With even a small
| amount of effort creators can continue to successfully
| package and sell their stuff to the fans even when it's
| avilable for free. It's worked on me several times in
| fact.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It would be great for consumers if it was just free
| sa-code wrote:
| > There is not enough consolidation
|
| This is an absolutely wild (and incorrect) thing to assume.
| The problem of content lock-in is anti-competitive and it
| would be better solved without mergers
| duped wrote:
| Consumers don't care so much about consolidation as they care
| about not getting ripped off. When Netflix and Hulu were the
| only streaming platforms you paid a pretty low price to get
| virtually everything you wanted. Now you pay more for a worse
| experience.
|
| Netflix at least has technical chops. Other studios (looking
| at you, Paramount-) put out barely functional apps because
| they know consumers ultimately will pay for their content.
| ghaff wrote:
| >you paid a pretty low price to get virtually everything
| you wanted
|
| Depends what you wanted.
|
| Both a deep back catalog of TV and film more generally were
| always pretty lacking on all-you-could-eat streaming
| services. Frankly, my biggest complaint with Netflix is
| that they basically drove local video rental out of
| business and then shut their own rental down.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| This. I loved the DVD service and I don't think I was
| alone. Younger folks didn't perhaps use it as much as
| some, but for those who don't have the best internet
| speed or service, they were great.
| autoexec wrote:
| Even when I had good service/speeds the DVD service was
| amazing because it had way more options than streaming
| does even now, including some pretty hard to find DVDs,
| and you got the extra features! It was also nice to
| regularly get something in my mailbox besides spam...
| autoexec wrote:
| Netflix may have the technical ability, but they don't
| deliver. Their UI just gets worse and worse in terms of
| usability and they keep cutting features on top of
| steadfastly refusing to provide features people have been
| asking for since they started steaming movies.
|
| Basically every streaming app is minimally functional and
| obnoxious in their own ways. netflix isn't the worst of
| them, but it's no exception and getting worse all the time.
| cedilla wrote:
| People were happy because they only needed one subscription
| and one app. Buying Warner Bros won't bring that back. If
| anything, it makes it less likely.
| ghaff wrote:
| >People were happy because they only needed one
| subscription and one app. Buying Warner Bros won't bring
| that back. If anything, it makes it less likely.
|
| Plus a cable TV subscription in many/most cases.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| 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 status over what you can and can't legally watch.
| (The movie and television business is not like the music
| business; the financial incentives don't, as far as I can
| tell, support the same kind of distribution models.)
|
| I'm not particularly thrilled about this kind of
| consolidation, but given that Warner was going to be bought
| by _somebody,_ Netflix may be one of the least worst
| outcomes.
| nemomarx wrote:
| 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...)
| themerone wrote:
| HBO owns Westworld and stopped streaming it to avoid paying
| residuals.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Wow. That is dysfunctional.
|
| I would be curious how the financial wires got crossed.
|
| I would have assumed residuals were proportional to
| views, and views valued proportionally as contributing to
| subscription demand. And it would be a rare viewer to
| watch one show like that, over & over. I.e. only upside.
| Something went sideways.
| motoxpro wrote:
| Thats how it used to work in the movie theater/cable
| days. Then Netflix said "I will pay you a ton of money up
| front to own everything" Creatives said amazing! Then the
| "war" for creative talent started because of the
| fragmentation of services, so you got people saying I
| will pay you X + a royalty regardless because you are so
| sought after, which eventually, as you see here, priced
| them out of their own content.
| teepo wrote:
| I think that a show like Westworld is a great example of
| the realities of the streaming era. If HBO kept streaming
| it on HBO Max it probably costs them $2-4 million in
| residual liabilities. HBO removed _dozens_ of scripted
| shows during that phase, and had a mandate to cut around
| $3B in post merger costs.
|
| After Year 1, WGA/SAG residual formulas decrease: Year 2:
| ~80% of Year 1 Year 3: ~55% Year 4+: sometimes stabilize
| at a "floor" rate
|
| So what did they do? They ran it for a few years, ran the
| numbers, realized that Westworld was no longer profitable
| on the platform. (Profitable would have to mean draws
| enough new subscribers to the platform). AND THEN -
| Warner Bros. Discovery made new deals with other
| platforms with ads. I think you can still find Westworld
| on Tubi and other ad-supported platforms that actually
| pay Warner licensing fees.
| joquarky wrote:
| If they don't make their content available legally, then
| it should go into the public domain.
|
| Don't want this to happen to your content? Then don't
| release it to the public.
|
| We need to bring back explicit copyright registration and
| renewals.
| roguecoder wrote:
| Hoarding is never good for society. It is wild that we've
| adopted laws to reward it.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| As a rule of thumb, consolidation is never good. There are
| exceptions where consolidated services can improve (eg
| arguably physical infrastructure, healthcare), but in general
| this will not benefit the consumer.
| philipallstar wrote:
| As a rule of thumb maybe, but in this case it might well.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| How? This only means prices will go up.
| philipallstar wrote:
| But if you don't need to pay for two subs, and the cost
| of two apps and two lots of infra goes away, that could
| be good value.
| eloisant wrote:
| We just need to end all exclusives.
|
| Make it like music streaming, where all services have the
| same catalog so you can choose on price, features, etc.
| alephnerd wrote:
| That only happened because the content libraries decided to
| exit the music streaming game.
|
| It also helped that the largest player in the music content
| library game (Sony) was not really as adept at software as
| Comcast, Disney, and NBCU were.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| People were happy when Netflix was cheaper that total sum of
| what they were paying on cable.
|
| Lower prices is the last thing we'd expect from that deal.
| Yokolos wrote:
| The assumption back then was that other companies would be
| making shows. Consolidating even more show production in one
| company is not something we should want.
| thayne wrote:
| 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 that includes everything, and paying for content
| a la carte, or maybe subscriptions that focus on specific
| kinds of content (scifi/fantasy, stuff for kids, old movies,
| international, sports, etc.) regardless of what company made
| it.
| jajuuka wrote:
| This would be ideal. The cable model was inherently flawed;
| it was just a series of local monopolies that poisoned it.
| Give consumers a choice. But considering everyone operates
| like Disney anymore and is highly protective of its IP I
| doubt this world will ever exist without direct government
| intervention.
| autoexec wrote:
| Honestly the biggest problem was/is copyright law. Make
| everything older than 10-14 years public domain and
| streaming services would have endless amounts of content
| always available. Independently operated streaming sites
| would be all over the internet.
| roguecoder wrote:
| That would also solve the problem of AI training data.
| Build a data set, wait 14 years, and it's guaranteed to
| be legal.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| This should really be the end goal. We are worse off than
| cable right now with all these streaming services and worse
| , overlapping content.
| mulderc wrote:
| Strong disagree on being worse off than cable. I now
| almost never see ads, that is a huge benefit in my book.
| MattRix wrote:
| it is nice that if you pay enough you can avoid ads, but
| they are definitely coming to all the lower price
| tiers... and the premium tiers will of course get more
| expensive over time
| SpaceNoodled wrote:
| At some point, the market will no longer be able to bear
| premium price hikes, and they'll just shove in ads
| instead - exactly as happened with cable.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| HBO never had a tier with ads when it was on cable, it
| was simply expensive.
| autoexec wrote:
| Lots of things didn't have ads on the past (basic cable
| TV for example). Today the model has changed to being
| expensive and still collect data/push ads. This isn't a
| cable vs streaming thing, it's a then vs now thing.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| True. People forget television itself is barely 100 years
| old. Business models don't grow on trees, they need to be
| invented and they evolve along with the technology.
|
| Advertising was with us for centuries, but it took until
| last few decades for it to evolve into a social cancer it
| is today.
| basilgohar wrote:
| I'm really confused why this comment is downvoted to me.
| It's a pretty salient observation in my opinion. If it's
| because it's obvious to others, I think it bears
| repetition because it's an important distinction to the
| contrary.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| That was 80s Reagan/conservative American. Those folks
| weren't as greedy as modern day companies and they cared
| about their product/experience, whereas nowadays caring
| about that is outsourced (see the Mad Men mess) and greed
| is king.
|
| It's wild to long for the day of 'caring', 'sane', Reagan
| era corporate 'governance'.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Look up "corporate raiders" if you think business people
| weren't greedy in the 80s, or the dissolution of Ma Bell,
| that used to _rent_ you your phone. In fact, the 80s era
| cable TV also started the box rental racket. You could
| not choose to buy, you had to rent.
|
| Regan's politics are completely orthogonal to IP content
| today.
| marssaxman wrote:
| ...and piracy will once again become rampant!
| GuB-42 wrote:
| There is a difference between a streaming platform and
| cable. Streaming platforms are on demand while cable is
| broadcast.
|
| To have an ads/no ads option with cable, you need 2
| distinct channels with different programming, as you need
| something fill what would be the ad breaks. With an on-
| demand platform, there is no fixed schedule, so you can
| insert ads at will without having to account for that.
|
| So even if the market for no ads is small, it doesn't
| cost them much to provide that option, and they just have
| to price it above how much they get from ads to make a
| profit. Even the seldom used YouTube Premium is actually
| quite profitable for Google. Streaming platforms won't
| miss that opportunity.
| yunwal wrote:
| Whenever a no ads tier is offered, a few ads always get
| shoved into the premium subscription eventually (see:
| spotify) because companies want to be able to reach the
| premium customers, who have more disposable income on
| average.
| maxerickson wrote:
| My understanding is that they already make more money on
| the ad tiers.
|
| (So the price increases are about finding the revenue
| maximizing price for the ad free tiers, not about overall
| profit)
| nemomarx wrote:
| Where's the amazon prime tier where I don't get ads?
| toast0 wrote:
| Two to five years ago. :P depending on how you feel about
| their cross-promotions (which are ads, but at least
| aren't inserted into the content)
| Nevermark wrote:
| It is called: Prime Video Ad Free
|
| Go to the Prime Video website, or check your settings in
| Prime Video on your device.
|
| I have lived a video ad free life for decades. I am
| convinced video ads do bad things to our brains. In
| aggregate, beyond any individual impact they may or may
| not have.
|
| Ad blockers, ad free YouTube, Kagi, ... whatever it
| takes.
| autoexec wrote:
| As far as I can tell there isn't one. Even when you pay
| extra for no ads the interface itself is infested with
| them. A truly ad free amazon prime tier wouldn't
| constantly push shows and movies you that you have to pay
| for on top of the higher monthly fee you're already
| paying for or show ads for shows and movies on other
| platforms.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| They're clever with that, by offering subscriptions to
| various producers _and other streaming platforms_ within
| Amazon Prime video UI. The Amazon subscription is very
| cheap, but then you end up sub-subscribing to SkyShowtime
| and MGM and Apple Video to get access to your favorite
| space shows, and suddenly it 's cable 2.0.
|
| Wouldn't be so bad if the player didn't suck. You'd think
| video streaming chrome would be a solved problem by now,
| but it's not, and somehow we're regressing on this front.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Did people forget that on cable you could only watch what
| was being broadcast in that moment?
|
| Streaming is infinitely better.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Did people forget that on cable you could only watch
| what was being broadcast in that moment?
|
| On-demand cable content existed and was significant at
| the tail end of the period when cable was still dominant,
| so it is probably lost of most people's baseline (at
| least, those that didn't either abandon it early or never
| had it at all) in comparing to cable.
| bakies wrote:
| growing up I always had on-demand and recording on the
| set top boxes
| ghaff wrote:
| Certainly TiVo came in--as well as boxes from cable
| companies (though I only had TiVo). And, if you really
| want to go old school, you could program VCRs to record
| shows if you were off on vacation.
|
| But there was a long period even after cable came in for
| more channels and potentially better reception when TV
| was largely on a set schedule.
| bakies wrote:
| Didn't the VCR still work with cable? (I haven't used
| one)
| ghaff wrote:
| I was probably still using recordable VCRs when I had
| cable--though it was probably still composite video/audio
| input. But at some point I started using TiVo. Don't
| remember the whole tech evolution.
| autoexec wrote:
| For a short time there VCRs and DVRs even came with ad
| blockers that automatically removed commercials!
| bakies wrote:
| I remember upgrading the tivo for this
| laughing_man wrote:
| Where I lived the local cable company boasted something
| like 250 channels on the base tier. But when your cable
| box arrived you discovered there were less than 50 actual
| broadcast channels, and the rest were pricey on-demand
| channels. I think it was about $5 for a movie, which is
| more than Amazon Prime today and much more in constant
| dollars.
| autoexec wrote:
| Steaming is slowly going back to that too. Netflix got
| popular for letting people binge shows that released but
| increasingly they are putting out shows one episode a
| week so that they can keep the hype up over a longer
| period and better monitor/control social media.
|
| Netflix also hides a ton of their content and
| aggressively pushes whatever is new because it makes it
| easier for them to get immediate metrics on how popular
| something is.
|
| Right now, you're pretty much stuck watching whatever is
| being "streamed in that moment" as it is. For example,
| netflix added the austin powers movies in October, but by
| Dec 1 they were removed. You had a window of just 2
| months to watch and if you missed them you're stuck
| waiting for them to "rerun" just like regular TV. I
| expect that trend to continue with shorter and shorter
| windows as Netflix pushes people to watch shows when they
| want you to watch them.
| smelendez wrote:
| It depends on what you watch and how much you watch.
|
| Cable in its heyday was expensive, even for a low tier
| package with CNN, TNT, MTV, Nickelodeon and other non-
| premium channels. Most people did not have premium
| channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz, etc. Even
| Disney was a paid add-on in the early 90s. Adding or
| removing those channels at the minimum meant calling
| customer service and in certain eras of cable technology
| could even mean waiting on a tech visit to provision
| physical descrambling equipment. And obviously TV was
| linear, not on-demand.
|
| If you watch a series or movie here and there, and aren't
| a big TV viewer, the streaming era is much, much cheaper
| with greater choice. You can often even access what you
| want to watch through a free trial, a single-month
| subscription, or a free service like Tubi or Pluto. Movie
| rental options are much better, more convenient, and
| cheaper (often even before adjusting for inflation) than
| Blockbuster, and you have access to much better
| information before you pull the trigger on renting a
| movie you haven't heard of before.
| serial_dev wrote:
| Why is overlapping content an issue? Isn't that good?
|
| Let's say I like Show A and Show B. Show A is available
| on Provider 1 and Provider 2, Show B is available at
| Provider 2 and Provider 3. Thanks to overlapping content,
| I can subscribe to Provider 2 and I can watch both of my
| favorite shows.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Oh my god no. The content is much better and you can
| watch whenever you want.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| This is how it worked a decade+ ago, when there was still
| alpha to be had on providing better streaming service. It
| was great and we got things like the Netflix Prize and all
| sorts of content ranking improvements, better CDN
| platforms, lower latency and less buffering, more content
| upgraded to HD and 4K. Plus some annoying but clearly
| effective practices like auto-play of trailers and
| unrelated shows.
|
| Now these are all solved problems, so there is no benefit
| in trying to compete on making a better platform / service.
| The only thing left is competing on content.
|
| > I want several companies that are able to license
| whatever content they want. And ideally the customer can
| choose between a subscription that includes everything, and
| paying for content a la carte, or maybe subscriptions that
| focus on specific kinds of content
|
| This seems like splitting hairs, it's almost exactly what
| we do have. You can still buy and rent individual shows &
| movies from Apple and Amazon and other providers. Or you
| can subscribe to services. The only difference is there is
| no one big "subscription that includes everything", you
| need 10 different $15 subscriptions to get everything.
| Again, kind of splitting hairs though. The one big
| subscription would probably be the same price as everything
| combined anyway.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Ah yes, today where they optimized out the recommendation
| algo to the point I haven't found something recommended
| to be watch worthy in years. The only thing worse than
| the video streaming recommendations is what's become of
| Amazon/Audible's book recommendations (though Spotify is
| trying hard to enshitify their algos to catch up).
|
| Sad that we can't have nice things, but capitalism must
| be fed and I guess good, targeted recommendation
| algorithms are anti-capital.
| ghaff wrote:
| Exactly. Nothing is really preventing a $200/month
| aggregator beyond paying a bunch of lawyers and people
| not wanting to pay that. I know I'll live with some
| service fragmentation in exchange for not paying for a
| bunch of stuff I'll maybe watch once in a blue moon. And
| I'll probably buy some discs for things I really want to
| see.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Exclusive deals are preventing it. Media content is
| resistant to commodification, making it a durable value
| proposition, and this makes exclusive licensing deals
| highly desirable - lawyers hired by an upstart aren't
| going to make a dent in this.
| ghaff wrote:
| Don't disagree. Just paying lawyers was sort of a facile
| dismissal on my part. In video content, there's a lot of
| history that makes it hard to get closer to the way
| things are in music. Though there are also monetary
| incentives and practicalities as well.
| immibis wrote:
| Yes, that's the lawyers part. They are stopping you from
| just skipping the impossible licensing step.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Doesn't the ease and low risk of individual copyright
| violation place an upper bound of sorts. Sharing sites
| are still everywhere, and they were never very successful
| in making people confuse civil for criminal.
| cons0le wrote:
| They can charge that, but I won't pay it. I give myself
| like 20/month and rotate between services. Still barely
| worth it
| LanceH wrote:
| My solution with manufactured content is to just rotate
| services. I maintain netflix year round because they have
| enough, but I'll buy the special rate and cancel in the
| same day, giving me a month at a time of each of the
| different ones. It also gives them time to release the
| whole season, instead of dribbling them out over the
| course of months.
|
| It's sports that really have driven me away. I like
| collegiate wrestling. This is by no means a mainstream
| sport. But to watch what I want, I need to subscribe to
| flowrestling, ESPN, B1G, and BTN. The last two are really
| mind blowing, because the big 10 seems to think I need
| two subscriptions to watch a single season for a niche
| sport.
|
| It's just too much for me to bear -- not financially, but
| morally. I won't reward such behavior, so I just don't
| watch.
|
| Then there are all the games that are on broadcast and
| could normally watch them for free, but unless you have
| an antenna, you need to subscribe to get your local
| channel.
|
| Now these leagues need to contend with my family and all
| the others like it where the kids won't have the
| nostalgia for that game that was on every Sunday. We
| don't watch the games, so we don't go to the games, so
| they'll never grow into being fans themselves.
|
| The NHL does seem to try putting their games in front of
| their fans as the lone exception.
| j2kun wrote:
| It is worth noting that the Netflix Prize winner's
| solution was never meaningfully used, because Netflix
| pivoted from ranking content based on what you tell them
| you like to ranking content based on clicks and minutes
| watched.
|
| To say that "we have solved ranking" because Netflix
| decided to measure shallow metrics and addiction is...
| specious at best. Instead the tech industry (in all media
| domains, not just streaming video) replaced improving
| platforms and services in meaningful ways with
| surveillance and revenue extraction.
| gizzlon wrote:
| > ranking content based on clicks and minutes watched.
|
| I suspect they just push what they want you to watch,
| like their own content. Seems that way to me at least,
| based on their quite shitty "recommendations"
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I want more than two parties competing to run the
| democracy, also.
|
| The things you want arn't going to happen under the current
| operating procedures of the United States of America.
|
| I hope that's clear.
| malvim wrote:
| This is how cable worked, no? And how streaming has been
| working. And it MIGHT be getting things cheaper, maybe? I
| guess?
|
| But watching specific stuff you want is hell. The cognitive
| load of searching a bunch of services, or finding a site
| that tells you where to watch, then it's not in that same
| service in your country, you might have to pay extra, or
| sign up for another streaming service or... Holy cow, it's
| a terrible experience.
|
| I'm not saying I have a better idea, or that it couldn't be
| worse. But it's terrible.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I agree with you that modern streaming service are a
| hassle, BUT - I'm old enough to remember Blockbuster,
| too. It used to be that if you wanted to watch a movie,
| you drove to the video store, found a copy, paid $2 to
| rent it for 24 hours, tried to remember to rewind it and
| got it back to the store before it was late. Streaming
| services are _definitely_ more convenient.
|
| Right now, you can pretty much rent any movie you want
| through Amazon Prime with not late fee or rewind penalty,
| but you have to pay a couple of (extra!) dollars to do
| it. This is, undebatably, a massive improvement over the
| way it used to be in every way, but it still bothers me
| even though I can't put my finger on exactly why.
| ghaff wrote:
| An analyst friend of mine wrote that Napster was more
| about convenience than price (free). I disagreed with him
| at the time but, with the rise of various streaming
| services, I've come to view myself as at least partially
| wrong.
|
| Maybe not the broke 20 year old per another comment. (Who
| doesn't have a lot of money anyway.) But a lot of people
| are happy and able to pay for a subscription that doesn't
| involve screwing around with a lot of dodgy stuff.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I thought this conclusion about Napster was and is widely
| considered as true and most important lesson of that
| time. Success of YouTube, Spotify, Netflix and Steam and
| the near-demise of piracy are usually attributed to that.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm talking from at least a decade ago. There was a
| pretty wide assumption (including from myself) that the
| main attraction of Napster was piracy; it certainly was
| mine at the time as I replaced a bunch of old vinyl. The
| expansion of music streaming services are certainly a
| pretty good indication that convenience of getting
| mainstream content at prices that people historically
| paid for vinyl/CDs works pretty well.
| joelwilliamson wrote:
| Even Amazon Prime's catalogue is only a third the size of
| what Netflix had 15 years ago.
| tptacek wrote:
| Watching specific stuff you want to see is 1000x easier
| today than it was in the 1990s, when cable ran this whole
| industry, and anything you wanted came bundled with 100
| things you didn't want.
| schnable wrote:
| It still works this way.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| We could deliver to consumers over some sort of "cable".
| But what would we call it?
| phantasmish wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Exactly the correct solution.
|
| We did something similar with movie theaters and film
| studios for decades, up until a couple years ago. Same sort
| of problem, same solution should work.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Not only movie theaters, but also movie rental and
| selling of VHS tapes/DVDs etc.
|
| One could go to the favorite department store and get
| movies from all studios right next to each other, sorted
| by genre or title or similar.
| phantasmish wrote:
| Like vertical integration isn't _always_ bad 100% of the
| time, but this particular case of marrying distribution
| and production seems to serve minimal beneficial purpose
| and inevitably the main outcome is high levels of rents-
| collection and squeezing the people doing the actual
| creative work. There 's pretty much nothing but up-side
| to forcing the two roles to remain separate.
|
| It's probably got something to do with copyright. Like
| the way it interacts with markets makes this sort of
| arrangement net-harmful pretty much any time you see it.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > It's probably got something to do with copyright. Like
| the way it interacts with markets makes this sort of
| arrangement net-harmful pretty much any time you see it.
|
| I would say it is monopoly.
|
| If you are a luxury brand you may sell your pen in a
| brand store only and limit access and will have some
| business.
|
| But other companies will produce comparable pens and then
| your only moat is the brand identity but in all objective
| criteria the other pens are equal.
|
| With intellectual work you got the monopoly. If I want
| the Taylor Swift song I don't want Lady Gaga, even though
| both may be good. If I want a Batman movie, I don't want
| Iron Man. These products aren't comparable in the same
| way. And another vendor (studio) can't produce an equal
| product in the same way as with the pen example.
| jameshart wrote:
| Music publishing vs radio stations is a fascinating
| example - compulsory licensing, meaning radio stations
| are free to broadcast any music at all; even rules
| preventing radio stations and DJs from accepting payola
| from publishers to promote their records.
| acessoproibido wrote:
| You can still do that though, it's just less convenient
| than streaming and you need to go outside.
|
| In my city people literally put boxes of DVDs on the
| street and I can get several months of movies to watch by
| just taking a casual stroll in my neighborhood.
| yibg wrote:
| You can today no? You can buy or rent a single movie / tv
| series from apple tv, amazon etc. problem is most people
| don't want to buy each thing they want to watch.
| Draiken wrote:
| You mean the "license while they feel like it" kind of
| purchase?
|
| If I could pay for individual TV shows and actually own
| them I'd definitely prefer that over the disaster we have
| today. Buying a blue-ray and ripping it is not very
| practical and it's by design.
| coder543 wrote:
| Netflix (notoriously) does not license most of their
| content this way. You can't rent/buy Stranger Things on
| Apple TV, no matter how much you're willing to pay. If
| Netflix acquires Warner Bros, I expect this restriction
| to extend to that content too over time.
| thayne wrote:
| Sometimes you can. But there are also shows where the
| only (legal) way to watch it is on a particular streaming
| platform where it is "exclusive".
| schnable wrote:
| This is how it was with cable, and it was actually better
| for the content providers. They made shows and got fat
| checks from the cable companies every year.
|
| Then they all copied Netflix, because the stockmarket was
| rewarding it, and had to start dealing with billing,
| customer retention, technology platforms, advertising
| platforms. And they all lost a ton of money a doing it.
| thayne wrote:
| Not quite the same. Cable had regional monopolies due to
| the high barrier of entry and economies of scale
| (building cable infrastructure). There is still some
| economy of scale for streaming platforms, but if you get
| rid of exclusive content and the difficulty of making
| license deals (especially for a small player), then it is
| a lot easier for a new startup to compete in the area
| then it ever was to compete with a cable company.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I want all the movies for free without pirating
| sokoloff wrote:
| How do movies get made under that system?
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| I agree that separation of concerns might bring better
| content but I can't afford buying multiple services in
| hopes of catching what I want.
|
| (Actually, I can afford it but I'm ... frugal.)
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Let the market figure it out. There has never been an
| easier time to make content and there has never been an
| easier time to distribute content.
| dataflow wrote:
| People want a single service to pay for that serves all
| content, not a single corporate entity creating the content
| the service provides access to. Like how people want a single
| payment method that works everywhere globally, not a single
| company that produces all products globally. Bizarre that you
| don't see a distinction between the two.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| the POV really is: for every 19 people who will pay $14/mo
| for their preferred, unbundled service, there's 1 person who
| would happily pay $300/mo for a bundled service.
|
| premium subs are for people who BUY subs not for people who
| WANT subs.
| mlsu wrote:
| Netflix was still competing with blu-ray/DVD/cable at that
| point.
|
| "why should I watch TV on the fiddly computer when I can just
| pop a disc in?" or "why should I turn on Netflix when there's
| clearly stuff on cable TV?" -- that was Netflix's competition
| in those days. Because there was competition, they had to
| lower prices and improve service to win consumers.
|
| Now, that competition is being destroyed. Rest assured,
| Netflix will use this market power to extract more from the
| consumer.
| raddan wrote:
| Netflix is still "competing" with discs at this point,
| although I would accept that discs aren't exactly winning.
| Most of the content I watch comes from blu-rays, and with a
| few exceptions (The Americans, grr), most of the things I
| want to watch have been released on disc. In fact, there is
| a small community of film enthusiasts who continue to
| purchase media outright, e.g., https://www.blu-ray.com.
|
| I started using Netflix in 2001 as a DVD subscriber. It was
| wonderful for nearly 20 years. I ended up canceling before
| the service officially ended because it was clear that the
| writing was on the wall and the service was going downhill
| fast. You used to be able to get nearly any movie or TV
| series, domestic or foreign. It's a lot more work to find
| good stuff now, even with streaming in the mix.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I think the main reason they aren't competing as much now
| is that blu ray players / computers with disc drives /
| consoles with disc drives are getting more scarce?
|
| I don't even know where I would get a good blu ray drive.
| The videophile subreddits keep suggesting very specific
| models with flashed firmware, which is not exactly
| accomodating to the public.
| diab0lic wrote:
| The causality might be backwards there. Blu ray and other
| disk players are likely becoming scarce because people
| are using them less rather than people using them less
| because the devices are scarce.
|
| What happened to Netflix DVD by mail was that Redbox ate
| its lunch, which ultimately was also a failing business
| model.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Netflix is still "competing" with discs at this point
|
| An increasing number of shows are never getting released
| on physical media to prevent this. The only thing
| streaming services are competing with in any meaningful
| way is piracy and I'm guessing piracy is going to get
| more and more popular the more greed/enshittification
| keeps making streaming platforms worse
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > People were happy when Netflix was the streaming service
|
| That was also before they started aggressively pushing their
| own content. For a while, it looked like Netflix was going to
| be the place you go to stream any movie that ever existed
| (which was pretty much what they were with mail-in DVDs
| before the streaming service came along). Now it seems like
| they don't really want to be in that business either.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I am happy to stream surf. Spend a month on amc+, the next
| month on paramount+, the next in Hulu. It keeps them wanting
| me back. Competition is good
| poisonarena wrote:
| for me it is pirating everything since since the video
| stores closed down and never giving any money to any of
| these companies
| deegles wrote:
| I mean... did we really expect the content owners to roll
| over and let the streaming platforms capture the potential
| profits?
| dangus wrote:
| This idea doesn't mean those people are correct.
|
| Netflix was great when it was the only streaming service
| because all the legacy media companies licensed shows for
| cheap. They basically considered it bonus income like
| syndicated television.
|
| Most of Netflix's content at that time was very popular but
| was basically just reruns. The Office, etc. It was a time
| when you'd be hard pressed to find any movie resembling a
| blockbuster, just bargain DVD bin type of stuff.
|
| If all the streaming services consolidate there will be less
| reason than ever to put effort into content. As long as most
| people stay subscribed the less they spend on content the
| better.
|
| With an a la carte landscape that we have now, streaming
| services all have to fight it out in open competition to keep
| their service on your monthly bill.
|
| It might be less convenient but it is better for content than
| having a market with just one, two, or three players.
| roguecoder wrote:
| We could get back to that world with anti-trust enforcement
| and mandatory licensing, while still keeping whatever
| positive effects competition has had on content production
| (which I think are debatable at best: it seems like no one
| outside of low-budget stuff like Dropout is making anything
| interesting in the US right now.)
| dangus wrote:
| I think a great copyright compromise to the insanely long
| copyright periods would be if certain types of content
| had standardized licensing costs that kicked in after a
| certain amount of time.
|
| It would be a very interesting concept if after 10/20
| years, anyone could grab any copyrighted content and
| redistribute it as long as they paid the copyright owner
| a license fee determined by copyright law.
| snapdeficit wrote:
| I was happy when Netflix was a DVD service. Streaming turned
| everything to shit. Netflix in 2003-2008 was its golden era:
| any movie you could think of from the past century was
| available.
|
| I will not lament the loss of visual mass media. I've already
| reduced my viewing to just Kanopy, but even they are reducing
| tickets.
|
| Fortunately there are plenty of other fun and entertaining
| things to do than sit in front of a screen and drool at slop.
|
| Unfortunately people will "suffer" with their first-world
| problems of not getting new Marvel movies every 8 months or
| Spider-Man reboots every 2 years, or having to pay
| $100+/month for drivel. Oh the humanity.
| renegade-otter wrote:
| Netflix was the STREAMING platform - it was not really making
| content until the House of Cards went supernova.
|
| This is true consolidation and monopolization - regardless of
| the "narrative" in whichever news you happen to consume.
| reincarnate0x14 wrote:
| I think it would be more accurate to say there was not enough
| cross-licensing. The generally preferable model seems to be
| service platforms that compete with each other, but with
| access to all the same production companies that also compete
| with each other. Vertical integration is an obvious win for
| the owners, but this fight has been going on since the
| earliest days of mass media with radio and motion picture
| studios.
|
| Netflix was the early beneficiary of broad licensing because
| the draw bridges hadn't been pulled up yet.
| jmull wrote:
| With a lot of competition you might have 20 great shows
| spread across 10 streamers. People will complain because
| they'd have to subscribe to 10 streamers to get everything.
|
| Consolidation reduces the number of streamers, but reduces
| the competition too. The number of great shows will go down
| faster than than the number of streamers too.
|
| The endpoint would be one streamer, with maybe 0-1 great
| shows. The vast majority of content will be low risk and
| cheap to produce.
|
| With one big streamer it will be easy to manage your
| subscription, but the price will still be at least as high as
| subscribing to half a dozen small streamers, and the shows
| will be worse.
|
| (Hope you like repetitive, formulaic shows, which, at best,
| are a rehash last year's mildly entertaining show. That's
| what you can look forward to.)
| khannn wrote:
| Watch Netflix keep HBO Max as a separate service
| didip wrote:
| Hm... I don't know, I can at least cancel my separate HBO Max
| subscription on Prime Video now (since I already paid for
| Netflix).
| Mindwipe wrote:
| I think it's extremely unlikely that they combine the two
| services in the next five to ten years.
|
| They will probably do a Disney+/Hulu bundle at some point.
| davidw wrote:
| > But at least it wasn't bought by Larry Ellison
|
| There are already noises about FCC or DOJ leaning on things in
| order to 'correct' that.
| philistine wrote:
| On the pure technical side of their streaming services, Netflix
| refuses to play ball with platform owners to integrate with
| services. Netflix on Apple TV has zero conceit for the
| platform. WB on the other hand is very typical of other
| streaming services. I wonder what will win out?
| airstrike wrote:
| The acquirer wins.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| If the provider isn't huge, they obey the house rules, and
| those rules will probably lead to better results than their
| silly ideas.
|
| If the provider is big and experienced, they negotiate to get
| to do what they want, and they have their own opinions that
| work.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| If it turns out that Netflix is more interested in Warner
| Brothers' IP than in things like CNN, they'll just sell those
| less-interesting pieces off.
|
| Quite possibly (and quite unfortunately) to the Ellisons.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| They are not acquiring CNN. They are interested in hbomax and
| content IP. All the other news and talk shows will be spun
| off to a new company called discovery global which is to be
| sold off separately.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's probably a mixed bag.
|
| On the one hand, competition good I guess?
|
| On the other hand, if we're not going to have a music situation
| where the vast majority of mainstream content is available on
| most of the major platforms, fragmentation is pretty consumer
| unfriendly.
|
| Netflix is pretty much a studio at this point. Not sure that
| back-end infrastructure or client apps is really a
| differentiator for anyone. An individual may find that one
| service is "better" in whatever respect but it's really about
| exclusive content.
|
| As a consumer I certainly hope that this means there's one less
| streaming service to deal with (though I'm no longer an HBO
| subscriber at the moment) so long as pricing doesn't go up too
| much.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Here in the EU it's great news if this means HBO contents are
| coming on Netflix. WBD has had so fare the absolute worse
| policy for international rights distribution for their shows,
| with policies varying wildly from season to season.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Don't count the Ellisons out. Firstly, they control the White
| House. If the American government doesn't give approval for
| this merger Netflix pays Warner Bros $5 billion and walks away.
| That leaves them open to a future Ellison takeover.
|
| Second, even if the purchase goes through they can still get a
| win, just a smaller one. Their goals of creating a Fox News
| like media empire are still alive. CNN doesn't fit with Netflix
| and will be spun out and when it is they can submit a bid for
| that company. The Ellisons will then control CBS and CNN.
|
| Meanwhile, as Netflix customers we can all look forward to
| paying more, but without the quality content that's HBO's
| trademark. The theatre goers among us will have to accept fewer
| movies getting to the theatre and going straight to streaming
| instead. Creative folks will have one fewer major employer,
| giving them less bargaining power.
|
| For voters, viewers and workers there was no winning no matter
| who made the winning bid.
| taeric wrote:
| This particular one could be ok for them? A major cost for
| Netflix in the modern era is licensing contracts that never
| adjusted to the streaming world. As such, consumers may
| actually get access to some backlog of WB stuff that is
| otherwise not worth offering?
| throwaway20222 wrote:
| My guess is you are right for some properties that WB owns
| outright, but legacy IP that has rights shared, especially
| pre-streaming rights will still have a lot of
| barriers/untangling to do.
|
| I think Netflix is the most well run media company today by a
| mile, but also on the spectrum of quality/art -vs- straight
| money/tech domination they fall into the latter category, and
| they are the among the least friendly to creators as far as
| contract/rights.
|
| We will see.
| taeric wrote:
| Totally fair. The rights around a lot of media is a giant
| mess. Is why songs used on some movies are not the same as
| the ones that were used in theaters. And is just baffling
| for people from the outside to consider.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Equally if not more baffling is that songs used in one
| region for DVDs might not be the same as other regions
| because of the same licensing issues
| mushufasa wrote:
| In their books (e.g. "No Rules Rules" Netflix seems
| extremely attractive to creators because they pay top
| dollar, as a general policy, and have the internal
| decision-making processes that support making bold bets on
| art without committees that push "safer" creative choices.
| bigbuppo wrote:
| And this is precisely because Netflix doesn't have to hit
| the jackpot with each new movie. They just have to keep
| people hooked on that subscription. It's one of the few
| times where the subscription model works best.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I haven't read that book so forgive the ignorant question
| here, but how am I to parse that title?
|
| "No Rules Rules", as in "no rules is awesome! It rules!"
|
| Or
|
| "No Rules Rules", as in "the only rules are that there
| are no rules".
|
| The difference in interpretation matters because the tone
| is quite different.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Netflix really struggles to make quality content. If we
| could somehow divorce the studios from the platforms, that
| would be ideal. But that ship sailed a long time ago.
| acessoproibido wrote:
| They don't need to make quality content, most people just
| watch Netflix on their second screen or mobile while
| doing something else.
|
| If you want quality you'd go to something like mubi
| autoexec wrote:
| Netflix is a terrible media company. They don't invest in
| their library and are happy to cancel shows without
| concluding them screwing the creators and the fans. They
| canceled a show within the same month it released!
|
| If a show does somehow get more than one season they can
| also be painfully slow. Stranger things took a 9 years to
| drop just 5 seasons. The Witcher was 6 years for just 4
| seasons.
| taeric wrote:
| I mean, I'm not going to try and defend them from never
| having made bad calls. But, I'm not clear that they are
| any worse at this than other media companies?
|
| To wit, finding a show that was canceled the month it was
| released probably isn't that hard? Same for shows that
| had trouble keeping cadence. Especially during COVID.
|
| Do we have data that shows they are worse?
|
| (Also, I think it is perfectly valid to object to this
| acquisition on other merits. I just would love some old
| backlogged cartoons to get wider distribution.)
| autoexec wrote:
| You're right about covid for sure. That really screwed
| with just about everyone's production schedule.
| taeric wrote:
| And to be further clear, I don't mean that as a way to
| assert you are wrong. I legit don't know if Netflix is
| better or worse than the norm in this area.
| khy wrote:
| > Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for
| consumers.
|
| I tend to see much more discussion about how the main downside
| is for sellers of content. Why is this bad for consumers?
| andsoitis wrote:
| > Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for
| consumers.
|
| WBD was on an increasingly unprofitable path, and we know where
| that road leads.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The exact same road that generally leads to the same sort of
| problematic consolidation?
|
| At best, WBD could have gone bankrupt and a court order could
| require it to be sold as parts with no one studio getting a
| significant chunk, scattering WBD's IP moat across many
| competitors.
|
| But most likely it just means someone like Netflix would have
| the chance to make a smaller offer for the same kind of deal
| on a WBD with a worse negotiating position. Same
| consequences, different day.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > The exact same road that generally leads to the same sort
| of problematic consolidation?
|
| But more drawn out. This way, creatives, consumers will get
| a reinvigorated outlet, rather than seeing it spiraling
| downward.
| xenospn wrote:
| FreeBSD to the moon!
| newsclues wrote:
| As a Canadian many people here say, "At least we aren't
| American" as cope for the rot and corruption of our country.
|
| It's a very toxic way to view things.
| guywithahat wrote:
| What would be wrong with Larry buying it? He doesn't own a
| media empire, and would be incentivized to compete. Larry
| buying it seems like it would have been better from a consumer
| perspective
| afavour wrote:
| > He doesn't own a media empire
|
| He just bought Paramount?
| otterley wrote:
| That's David Ellison, not Larry. (Same family, though.)
| afavour wrote:
| You're right, apologies, I forgot and now can't edit my
| original post. Point still stands, just with a different
| name!
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Technically Skydance is led David Ellison, Larry's son.
|
| Though, he's a trustfund kid and you can make a case that
| Larry owns it indirectly. (But if you want to make that
| case then it implies that Larry owns _two_ media empires
| given his daughter Megan Ellison owns slightly less
| successful Skydance rival Annapurna.)
| otterley wrote:
| David Ellison, not Larry. (David is Larry's son and CEO of
| Paramount Skydance.)
| Bhilai wrote:
| I am paying for both the services right now. I dont mind
| consolidating that payment and hopefully pay a slightly lower
| price.
| ninth_ant wrote:
| That is not how the world works, be it the past present or
| future.
| bko wrote:
| Why is this a negative for consumers? Doesn't everyone complain
| how they have to subscribe to 5 different streaming services,
| and plenty of people have to pay for a service just to enjoy
| one or two series?
|
| I don't think consolidation is necessarily bad. It makes sense
| from a cost perspective too. I guess they could just license
| out the content, but this will probably grow the catalog a lot.
| jajuuka wrote:
| The problem doesn't appear immediately; it appears over time
| where the market has been consolidated into only a couple
| companies and then they can raise prices as much as they want
| because there is no alternative. This is what cable was like
| for a long time. Part of subscription fatigue is the
| constantly raising prices of these services that used to be
| very cheap. Netflix having WB content isn't a bad thing, the
| problem is ownership because it will not be available
| elsewhere.
| beambot wrote:
| Consolidation means that incumbents rely on fickle intrinsic
| motivation rather than competitive pressure to keep quality
| high and prices low. All too often, monopolies or oligopies
| become complacent and merely "extract rents".
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Number goes up, content goes down.
| dasil003 wrote:
| The production side is the problem. Netflix churns out
| shovelware crap designed to be on in the background. Every
| once in a while they get lucky or stick their neck out to
| acquire something good, but the batting average is very low.
| HBO on the other hand has the highest batting average, and
| the brand actually still stands for quality.
|
| Of course Netflix is saying all the right things now to keep
| anti-trust off their backs, but at some which culture do you
| think is going to win out?
| dbbk wrote:
| "Something good" is subjective and your opinion. They make
| a lot of shows to appeal to all kinds of different
| audiences. I'm not sure why you'd conclude they would 'drag
| down' the quality.
| VanshPatel99 wrote:
| I think your comment is proving the point. Trying to make
| shows appeal to all kinds of services is not exactly an
| approach to making high quality shows. Masses tend to
| converge to mediocrity. If you consider it an art form
| then it really needs to come from the production side and
| not the consumption.
| dbbk wrote:
| Right but the production strands are all still their own
| thing. It's not like there's one big "Netflix Originals"
| meat grinder all the shows will get lumped into. The
| existence of reality shows on Netflix for example doesn't
| mean that they're going to be incapable of producing
| prestige dramas.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| This year Netflix and HBO both tied for most Emmy awards,
| at 30 each. Netflix is usually in the top few slots for
| both nominations and wins.
| gessha wrote:
| It's negative because under current market regulation and
| enforcement, big company buys small company and enshittifies
| every product.
|
| What people want (presumably) is a market where you pay once
| and you access everything and the money get divided based on
| creators, distribution or whatever.
|
| Under current market conditions, that will happen only in the
| limit where a single company owns everything.
| deadbabe wrote:
| HBO Max will need a new logo.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Off topic, but I am boggled that Larry Ellison came back to
| "richest man in the world" this year.
|
| For all the enormous Reach of Facebook adverts, Apple,
| Microsoft breadth of products, Tesla and SpaceX and Twitter,
| Amazon's massive cloud dominance, the AI boom for nVidia...
|
| Oracle?!
|
| " _On September 10, 2025, Ellison was briefly the wealthiest
| person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$393
| billion.
|
| In June 2020, Ellison was reported to be the seventh-wealthiest
| person in the world, with a net worth of $66.8 billion_"
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison
| MikeCapone wrote:
| He still owns over 40% of Oracle, that's a much bigger equity
| stake than most founders, and most of these other trillion-
| dollar companies don't have founders in charge anymore.
| hinkley wrote:
| Back when he was in competition with Gates for #1, I recall
| him changing his contract so he was getting paid in stock
| options instead of salary so he could get rich faster.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Everyone else is too busy spending everything they have on
| GPUs, DRAM and power plants?
|
| Joking. Honestly, the only thing that surprises me more than
| seeing Larry Ellison at the top of the list, is seeing
| Netflix buying Warner Bros, _and not the other way around_.
| Maybe I 'm too old, but the very notion somehow does not
| compute.
| jibal wrote:
| Yeah, that headline struck me as backwards too, but I
| acknowledge it's based on an old framework that doesn't
| match the modern facts.
|
| P.S. punished for what, honest self-deprecation? By "it" I
| meant my expectation, not the headline ... is that really
| not clear?
| hateful wrote:
| It felt the same way when AOL bought Time Warner.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In business, it's sometimes more about people's
| expectations for a company's future than their past
| performance.
|
| We must never assume the market is rational, and enough
| people getting hyped at the same time can give a company
| enough short-term cash to make an unexpected move.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| In addition to Oracle, he owns 1.5% of Tesla and 77% of
| Skydance/Paramount but those are <10% of the value of his
| Oracle stake.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That's interesting, from his Wikipedia page:
|
| "Ellison was married to Barbara Boothe from 1983 to
| 1986.[92] Boothe was a former receptionist at Oracle (RSI
| at the time).[93] They had two children, David and Megan,
| who were (as of 2024) film producers at Skydance Media and
| Annapurna Pictures, respectively"
|
| So he bought studios so his kids could make movies
| mNovak wrote:
| People don't seem to realize that Oracle is deep in the AI
| play, taking on a bunch of debt to make speculative leases
| and buildout of datacenters to rent to other players.
|
| It's been great for them so far, but if there's an AI winter,
| Oracle will be the first to freeze.
| unsui wrote:
| > Oracle will be the first to freeze
|
| one can hope
| xattt wrote:
| Will this somehow liberate ZFS?
| legitronics wrote:
| It'll just make their auditors and legal team desperate
| for money, which is kinda horrifying to consider.
| throw0101d wrote:
| How does ZFS need to be liberated?
| tosti wrote:
| They took the entire Solaris code back to proprietary
| source and kept improving ZFS themselves. For instance,
| they added encryption.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Even if Oracle evaporated and their contemporary ZFS
| source became unencumbered, I doubt OpenZFS would want to
| try and merge significantly parts. They already have
| their own encryption implementation for example.
| limagnolia wrote:
| There is debate as to whether the FreeZFS license (CDDL)
| is compatible with the GPL, which is why FreeZFS is not
| part of the Linux Kernel. Some distros are baking it in,
| but there has long been concern about if merging it
| violates the license or not.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| It could make it worse. IP from companies that got
| chopped up and sold for parts can be a nightmare. You may
| have to do deals with multiple parties, and it can be
| unclear who owns what (even to the potential owners
| themselves).
| an0malous wrote:
| Isn't that all from the one OpenAI deal they made 5 months
| ago?
| daretorant wrote:
| Random but this is a very well written line:
|
| > It's been great for them so far, but if there's an AI
| winter, Oracle will be the first to freeze.
|
| Kudos
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Oracle is still the company that does database for everyone
| with money to spend, and the percentage of companies (and
| governments, and NGOs) that discover a meaningful percentage
| of their very purpose is "moving data around" only grows over
| time. Their market is essentially constrained to "entities
| that use computers and want to sort data," which may as well
| be unconstrained. And in spite of all the ways they can be
| criticized, they _still_ compete at the top of their game;
| many cheaper or free alternatives are going to ask you to
| trade _a lot_ of labor (and added risk of data loss and
| destruction).
|
| In contrast, of the list of companies you highlighted,
|
| - Apple makes hardware, which is lower margin
|
| - Microsoft is under stiff competition (they are selling a
| product, an operating system, that is a commodity competing
| with free) and unlike Oracle is struggling to define why they
| should be the best choice (ads in the OS?!).
|
| - Meta doesn't actually have a monetization strategy _beyond_
| ads that is revenue-positive, and the reliability of ads
| turns out to be dicey (Google built their nest-egg on ads
| earlier than Facebook, and even Google has been thrashing
| about to find tent-poles besides ads; they see the risk). In
| spite of that, Zuck is currently above Ellison in the Fortune
| 2025 rankings.
|
| - AI is ghost money (behind the scenes, a lot of companies
| paying themselves essentially)
|
| - SpaceX is in a tiny market ultimately (each launch costs a
| fortune; a handful of customers want to put things in space)
|
| - Tesla suffers strong competition. In spite of the above,
| Musk is currently the top of the Forbes ranking.
|
| - Amazon is... Actually wildly successful and Bezos is #3 on
| the Forbes ranking. I think the only reason Bezos might not
| be higher is he spends his money.
|
| No, it's often the quiet ones _nobody_ talks about that are
| the real leaders. Lions don 't have to roar to be noticed.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _Microsoft is under stiff competition (they are selling
| a product, an operating system, that is a commodity
| competing with free)_ "
|
| Microsoft's Annual revenue from Azure is $75 billion.
| Office Server is $40 billion. Office Consumer is $6
| billion. LinkedIn is $15Bn. Dynamics is $5Bn. Gaming/XBox
| is $15Bn. Search/Advertising is $14Bn. Devices at $5Bn.
| Intelligent Cloud at $87Bn. Windows $21Bn. They are a HUGE
| company with a lot of multi-billion dollar product streams
| and a lot of business lockin around basically any company
| on the planet which isn't a new web app startup.
|
| Oracle sell an RDBMS. Competing with SQL Server,
| PostgreSQL, MySQL and the last 15 years of NoSQL. Oracle is
| what Amazon Retail made a multi-year move away from ending
| in 2019, and were very happy about it, popping champagne in
| their announcement video[1]. Oracle license Java which has
| seen a mass migration to free OpenJDK and Amazon Corretto
| and all the other free forks. Oracle make a cloud service
| that you wouldn't touch unless you had a team of Fortune
| 100 lawyers pressing enter for you because you know Oracle
| saleslawyersharks are watching on the other side.
|
| Why does anyone other than the government give them money?
| What for? Okay yes they're "the best" at something or other
| for a Fortune 100 with serious needs, nothing else comes
| close, ... but 4-5x their valuation in the last 5 years??
|
| > " _Tesla suffers strong competition. In spite of the
| above, Musk is currently the top of the Forbes ranking.
| Amazon is... Actually wildly successful_ "
|
| Yeah, Tesla is hype-valued and Amazon does a lot of things
| in a lot of big markets, of course they're valuable. Oracle
| does some obscure boring IBM style thing that is never
| hyped and there is never any positive sentiment about it on
| the tech internet.
|
| [1] https://www.supportrevolution.com/resources/why-amazon-
| left-...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Oracle had $57 billion in revenue in 2025, up 8% from
| last year. You do make the excellent observation that
| it's not as high or spiky as other tech companies. It is,
| however, consistent, and they've been at it much longer
| than most on the list (founded 1977).
|
| That last fact probably matters most regarding Ellison's
| fortune. Their "boring IBM style thing" continues to
| grow, slowly, and continues to make him money (a lot of
| it, given his continually-owned large stake); even if the
| velocity isn't as high as other billionaires, he started
| a lot earlier than they did.
|
| > Why does anyone other than the government give them
| money?
|
| I asked a similar question of a relative who was all-in
| on Microsoft in the '90s. His response was simple:
| "reliability and expectation of business-oriented
| service." When a company's been around since 1977,
| there's more trust they'll be around 10 years out. Oracle
| is many things, but it's not a company with a notorious
| "killed by" list of abandoned critical projects that
| other companies were relying upon to prop their revenue
| streams. And, if you spend enough money with them, they
| tend to put someone on helping you solve your problems to
| keep your business; this is something the alternatives do
| as well, but Oracle's seen a lot more business problems
| and has a big portfolio of past solutions that worked.
|
| I got to be a fly on the wall at one of the FAANGs
| transitioning off an Oracle DB, and the process took
| about 3x longer than scoped. The reason? Conservative
| decisionmaking: all the money flowed through the Oracle
| DBs, and you _cannot_ screw with the money flow. This
| goes beyond the need for a business to make revenue;
| failing to properly track your money flow can put you out
| of compliance with financial laws and make people go to
| jail. They trusted their in-house databases for tracking
| user PII, for keeping the core services running, for
| doing internal infrastructure monitoring and _employee_
| recordkeeping... It took convincing to get every
| stakeholder to trust it with the money.
|
| Companies buy in with Oracle because they have some
| confidence they won't go to jail for doing so.
| hephaes7us wrote:
| The government has so much money, what need does Oracle
| have of anybody else's?
|
| Furthermore, what money the government doesn't itself
| have, it can pressure others into spending, on occasion.
| e.g. that Bytedance/Oracle deal
| tempest_ wrote:
| It took Amazon like 10 years to get off Oracle didnt it?
| Amazon is a tech company where tech is the product and so
| has lots of internal expertise.
|
| It is like banks trying to get off mainframes, they just
| cant do it organizationally and there are loads of failed
| attempts both public and private. I imagine most
| companies using Oracle are like that.
| qcnguy wrote:
| _> Oracle sell an RDBMS_
|
| Businesses Oracle is in:
|
| - Databases (several)
|
| - Cloud
|
| - Software for planning everything related to
| manufacturing and logistics (ERP, supply chain
| management)
|
| - Software for customer relationship management (CRM)
|
| - Software for healthcare, managing hospitals and clinics
|
| - Software for managing every aspect of running a bank
|
| - Point of sale equipment
|
| - Software for running utility companies
|
| - Software for everything people related inside companies
| (payroll, HR, hiring, etc)
|
| - Competing with Red Hat on commercial Linux
|
| - Programming languages (several)
|
| - Software for managing inventories
|
| And a gazillion other things.
| adventured wrote:
| It's a combination of the over-valuation of Oracle - popping
| on the late stage of the AI bubble - and Ellison owning so
| much of Oracle.
|
| Even after the recent drop, Oracle is trading for ~33 times
| last four quarters operating income. With their meh growth
| rate, fair value is closer to half that. Except we're in an
| AI bubble. Oracle is riding the tail of the AI bubble just as
| they popped to the moon toward the end of the dotcom bubble.
| Oracle will contract afterward accordingly. The stock
| probably won't see this era's highs again for another 20
| years, if ever.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| He also really doesn't do much (almost any?) charity so far
| in his life. And he never had to split assets in a divorce.
| So he's like a dung beetle of money.
| fastball wrote:
| dung beetle of *wealth
|
| Which is kinda irrelevant. Him selling Oracle shares does
| not fundamentally change the world in any way. Sure you can
| say "he should sell shares and do charity", but you could
| make the same argument that whoever would be _buying those
| shares_ could be doing charity instead.
| eirikbakke wrote:
| "Larry Ellison has been involved with two philanthropic
| organizations. First he made a $300M donation to Stanford,
| in exchange for not admitting wrongdoing in an options
| backdating scandal. All other philanthropic work is to the
| Larry Ellison institute for prolonging of life--namely
| his." -- Bryan Cantrill
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc
| ge96 wrote:
| Funny death is the equalizer for now till you get the
| foundation situation
| admissionsguy wrote:
| Sounds like he is a refreshingly honest person
| jen729w wrote:
| Sounds like he's a twat.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| Isn't falling for virtue signalling charity donations
| more of a twattery?
| afavour wrote:
| If you choose to classify all charity donations as
| "virtue signaling", yes.
|
| If you reject that absurd false framing, no.
| slg wrote:
| It is always enlightening when people criticizing "virtue
| signaling" accidentally reveal that the problem they have
| is not the signaling, it's the having virtue.
| msandford wrote:
| There was a time when one of the virtues was not to brag
| about how virtuous you were. I think that's why a lot of
| folks have a problem with virtue signalling. In their
| minds if you're signalling by doing something publicly it
| karmically negates what you're doing and almost
| alchemically turns it into something resembling vice.
|
| I'm merely trying to explain how it is that people can
| have a problem with virtue signalling and to them it
| doesn't really contradict what is to them true virtue
| where you do something good and stay quiet about it.
| slg wrote:
| This comment feels like it was made outside the context
| of the existing conversation. The comment I replied to
| was calling all charity virtue signaling and not just
| vocal giving.
|
| But either way, I personally don't think a library is any
| less valuable to a community just because it has
| Carnegie's name above the entrance.
| array_key_first wrote:
| It's not virtue signally if you're tangible helping
| people. Like if I give away food, maybe I have the intent
| of signalling something, but I'm also giving away food.
| That actually happened.
|
| The world would be a much better place if rich people
| virtue signalled much more and thereby donated more.
| InexSquirrel wrote:
| Honest doesn't make good.
| array_key_first wrote:
| > in exchange for not admitting wrongdoing in an options
| backdating scandal
|
| >> Refreshing honest
|
| ?
| jodrellblank wrote:
| It's amusing but it's not true. From Wikipedia:
|
| > In 1992, Ellison shattered his elbow in a high-speed
| bicycle crash. After receiving treatment at University of
| California, Davis, Ellison donated $5 million to seed the
| Lawrence J. Ellison Musculo-Skeletal Research Center.
|
| > In 1998, the Lawrence J. Ellison Ambulatory Care Center
| opened on the Sacramento campus of the UC Davis Medical
| Center
|
| > In 2007, Ellison pledged $500,000 to fortify a
| community centre in Sderot, Israel, against rocket
| attacks
|
| > In 2014, he donated $10 million to the Friends of the
| Israel Defense Forces.
|
| > In 2017, he donated $16.6 million donation to support
| the construction of well-being facilities on a new campus
| for co-ed conscripts
|
| > In May 2016, Ellison donated $200 million to the
| University of Southern California to establish a cancer
| research center: the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for
| Transformative Medicine of USC
|
| > Between 2021 and 2023, Ellison invested $130 million in
| the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and has
| pledged a further $218 million since then
| skinnymuch wrote:
| You listed multiple sociopathic stuff. A western hegemony
| think tank is not a good thing. Giving money to a
| genociders is the opposite of good.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Nobody claimed otherwise. The claim was that he gave
| money to nothing except his own life extension fund. And
| you agree that he's given money to other things.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| He's been divorced five times:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison#Marriages
|
| But I guess with the first one having ended pre-Oracle,
| he's had a pretty solid pre-nup ever since.
| vpShane wrote:
| He did buy an entire island in Hawaii and makes it a decent
| place for the natives (from what I hear) but otherwise...
|
| Billionaire Drools That "Citizens Will Be on Their Best
| Behavior" Under Constant AI Surveillance
|
| https://futurism.com/the-byte/billionaire-constant-ai-
| survei...
|
| Is the kind of mindset behind this guy.
| burningChrome wrote:
| This is completely misleading.
|
| Even a cursory google search will give a rather long list:
|
| - Giving Pledge: Ellison signed the Giving Pledge,
| committing to donate the majority of his wealth to
| philanthropy. Recently, he announced plans to donate 95% of
| his $373 billion fortune, focusing on science, healthcare,
| climate change, and AI research.
|
| - Ellison Medical Foundation: Invested nearly $1 billion in
| biomedical research on aging and disease prevention before
| closing in 2013
|
| - Lawrence Ellison Foundation: Supports research on aging,
| health, education, sustainable agriculture, and wildlife
| conservation.
|
| - Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine (USC):
| Established with a $200 million donation to advance cancer
| research and personalized therapies
|
| - Ellison Institute of Technology (Oxford): A for-profit
| philanthropic initiative tackling global challenges like
| healthcare, food insecurity, climate change, and AI. A new
| campus worth $1.3 billion is planned for 2027
|
| - Significant funding for Oxford University through EIT
| partnerships, including scholarships and research programs.
|
| - Lion Country Safari Acquisition: Purchased the 254-acre
| wildlife sanctuary in Florida for $30 million through his
| foundation, ensuring continued conservation efforts.
|
| - Larry Ellison Conservation Center: Opened in California
| to rehabilitate and breed endangered species
|
| I'm not a huge fan of his or how Oracle has conducted
| business, but his giving represents billions to charity,
| not exactly fitting for the "dung beetle" label people are
| so quick to apply to him.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| So he has pledged to give away 95%. But so far it seems
| like he has given very little, maybe 1%?
| burningChrome wrote:
| So according to you there's some magical formula for when
| he has to give it all away? If you were him, wouldn't you
| want a lasting legacy? Something that your wealth effects
| generations over decades or even a century?
|
| Also, keep in mind he's already given away over $2B in
| charity, but even at 1%, that's still not very much for
| you?
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Yeah I don't know why people shame dung beetles with
| association to him
| cm2012 wrote:
| Pledging and giving are not the same thing.
| notatoad wrote:
| being the tech industry's conduit to the US president pays
| well.
| ndjeosibfb wrote:
| oracle cloud is a thing and it has some pretty big customers
| immibis wrote:
| The richest person must be a natural person, not a company.
| These are large companies but their shareholding is spread
| out. The lawnmower owns 40% of Oracle.
| subtlesoftware wrote:
| I'm actually looking forward to a bigger library on Netflix.
| Happy to pay a few more dollars per month for Netflix instead
| of managing ephemeral subscriptions to various streaming
| services.
| throwoutway wrote:
| > Netflix says they're keeping the company separate
|
| For a while... Eventually, you can expect that functions will
| be streamlined, compacted, and impacted
| letmeinhere wrote:
| > In June 2025, WBD announced plans to separate its Streaming &
| Studios and Global Networks divisions into two separate
| publicly traded companies. This separation is now expected to
| be completed in Q3 2026, prior to the closing of this
| transaction. The newly separated publicly traded company
| holding the Global Networks division, Discovery Global, will
| include premier entertainment, sports and news television
| brands around the world including CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S.,
| and Discovery, free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital
| products such as Discovery+ and Bleacher Report.
|
| So no, I don't think this gets in the way of Ellison taking
| over the rest of TV news; if anything it seems like it smooths
| the path.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Ellison is already in trumps pocket, netflix is going to have
| to up it's bribes or else somehow paramount will end up with
| the studio.
| zihaoyu wrote:
| > I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max.
|
| I don't see why Netflix wants to keep any of HBO Max tech.
|
| Edit: the deck[1] from Netflix webcast mentions:
|
| > Uniting Netflix's world-class member experience and global
| reach with Warner Bros.' renowned franchises and extensive
| library will...
|
| It seems obvious Netflix is only interested in WB's IP's and
| content catalog.
|
| [1]
| https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_events/2025/Dec/05...
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| IP acquisition makes stuff like this inevitable. And the
| streaming companies still aren't good enough at making and
| sustaining content, while the older companies simply can make
| better stuff still.
|
| It might be a path to breaking up some of the media
| conglomerates. Even if it's just different, newer
| conglomerates, maybe better media and news will shake out for a
| bit.
|
| But with big tech making EVERYTHING worse it touches with no
| regards for wetware customers, it's probably a bad thing.
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| Sounds like something a buyer would say. Surely Netflix can
| handle HBO traffic better and cheaper. Maybe HBO are stuck in
| some deals. But it is a no-brainer to trash the HBO backend
| over time.
| BatFastard wrote:
| Honestly the HBO streaming engineers should be promptly shot
| (or possibly their managers). HBO has the worst streaming
| interface of any service. Netflix on the other hand is quite
| good.
| quasarsunnix wrote:
| We're witnessing the globalization of television.
|
| When all is said and done there's going to be a few players left
| and they're all going to be American by the current looks of
| things. You could argue movies were already like this, but for
| television that's quite the change as most countries had many
| television production companies and stations.
|
| Now it seems like they'll be a few global media companies and
| maybe some local production houses that have to sell their stuff
| to these guys or setup their own services like the BBC does with
| iPlayer in the UK, with somewhat limited success compared to
| these giants.
| jmkd wrote:
| They won't be American. The balance of power has already
| shifted east. There are now more productions, more money and
| more facilities east of Madrid than west of it.
| tolerance wrote:
| So the companies in charge of distributing the content are
| American-based multinationals; production leaks out of the US
| toward prettier places and more amicable laborers; if you're
| American and want to tag along--in or behind the scenes--
| you're going to need a passport or a visa.
|
| Or something like that?
| irl_zebra wrote:
| I haven't heard of any of them, which I am open to being
| because of my own ignorance. Can you give some examples?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Ne Zha 2 comes to mind. One of the largest box offices ever
| and it came out this year. In my opinion: Good attempt but
| I dont see them supplanting Western media yet.
|
| Here is some history:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2J0pRJSToU
| petcat wrote:
| > The balance of power has already shifted east. There are
| now more productions, more money and more facilities east of
| Madrid than west of it.
|
| This is wild fantasy.
|
| the global power centers of TV distribution, monetization,
| and intellectual property ownership remain overwhelmingly
| American.
| jmkd wrote:
| You might be referring to the remnants of broadcast
| television. I'm referring to the screen-based productions
| capturing the eyeballs of tomorrow.
|
| One serious strand of America's _whip of many thongs_ is
| the inability or refusal to acknowledge the rise in power
| and influence elsewhere.
|
| As Gandalf - the last remaining talkshow host - gets pulled
| off the bridge into the abyss, he looks up to see a motley
| brigade of multi-cultural hobbits dashing for the surface
| with their wits and wallets thankfully intact.
|
| Please excuse my excruciating reimagining of your wild
| fantasy metaphor.
| petcat wrote:
| American companies control:
|
| * The largest global streaming platforms
| (Netflix/HBO/Max, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+)
|
| * The largest content libraries by revenue
|
| * The most extensive international distribution networks
|
| * The vast majority of high-budget scripted shows
| (budgets > $5M/episode)
|
| * The highest global licensing revenue streams
|
| * The most valuable franchises (DC, Marvel, Star Wars,
| Harry Potter, LOTR rights distribution through Amazon,
| etc.)
|
| No European or Asian company has anything close to this
| global reach.
| jmkd wrote:
| This a highly focussed western lens but is not
| representative of global media culture and business.
|
| If you completely discount Tencent Video, iQIYI, Youku,
| Bilibili, Kuaishou and so on in this outlook then that is
| the whip of many thongs in action.
|
| I realise some of these platforms operate behind a wall
| you can't see over but don't think for a minute that wall
| isn't coming down.
| oblio wrote:
| Something doesn't happen until it happens. And even when
| it happens, it might fail.
|
| So far China hasn't broken down many walls, for example
| I'm fairly sure they can't do what TSMC does.
|
| And for media... guess what, they need to open a lot of
| things up. There's a lot more freedom of speech in the
| US, so US media can be about a lot of things interesting
| to the rest of the world. The US even has a lot media
| catering to other countries (for example media targetting
| Chinese audiences).
|
| I mean, China could try that, we have the examples of
| Japanese and South Korean media, but both of those are
| democratic, and even then, it took them a long time to
| develop. Plus neither of them are near the levels of
| influence US media has.
| alt227 wrote:
| Its nothing to do with the wall they are behind, the
| market and companies are just smaller.
|
| For example, Tencent Video ranks 4th largest streamer in
| the world by subscribers after Amazon, Netflix, and
| Disney+. All American companies.
|
| Your argument doesnt really seem to hold water.
| petcat wrote:
| The things China does strictly within the walls of its
| own insular society is _a very far cry_ from
| representative of "global media culture and business".
|
| It is very much dominated by American media companies at
| every level. Funding, development, production,
| distribution.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Look I get how Ne Zha 2 was a big success and showed signs of
| good production quality, but lets be honest: The movie was
| boring. I'm sure the mostly Chinese audience that sat with me
| in the theater enjoyed it but I fell asleep halfway in.
|
| The "east" has more work to do to capture that _magic_ that
| the western imperial order (Hollywood) has wrought upon the
| world.
|
| I will continue to watch and observe how things play out.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| Why on earth would _Madrid_ be the dividing line between east
| and west?
| jmkd wrote:
| Because really we can split into three or more. US on one
| side, EU, middle and far east on the other.
|
| East of Madrid is booming, West is in decline.
|
| More accurately the line should be in Lagos but many are
| more familiar with EU film production centres.
| daedrdev wrote:
| China has its own movie industry that is highly isolated from
| the US one. Just look at the most successful movies and shows
| in China the past few years
| parrellel wrote:
| Well, at least it wasn't Larry Ellison.
| danieltk76 wrote:
| and here begins the downfall of Warner Bros.
| awongh wrote:
| 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 certain quality threshold.
|
| And this isn't exactly Netflix's problem- they know what their
| users want. When you're cooking dinner it doesn't make much
| difference to you if it's a Judd Apatow romantic comedy and one
| that's some Hallmark knockoff romcom bullshit.
|
| I'm not really sure how to solve the problem of this very siloed
| video content landscape. No one wants to subscribe to 4 streaming
| services.
|
| I would think the original netflix model of being mailed bluray
| discs might be viable, but without independent studios like
| Warner around, why would anyone produce physical media?
| the_real_cher wrote:
| It would just get ripped and put on pirate streaming sites.
|
| This seems like a chicken and egg downward spiral with
| consumers pirating and studios producing slop.
| shufflerofrocks wrote:
| 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 spend alone with your thoughts (which is
| too terrfying for people now apparently).
|
| A proper solution to current video content landscape used to be
| piracy - Netflix literally succeded early on in streaming
| because they were more convenient than pirating stuff. But with
| these Media Moguls lobbying hard to crack down on piracy (at
| the risk of privacy), it does look pretty bleak.
| dwa3592 wrote:
| What happens to my hbo max susbcription?
| paxys wrote:
| Netflix was the worst option, except for all the others who were
| bidding.
| amelius wrote:
| Smart move to sell before GenAI takes over the entire industry.
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| welp, at least we got 2 or 3 good DC movies before now. It was
| great while it lasted. I'm so tired of living in hell
| JLO64 wrote:
| Supergirl and The Batman 2 are releasing relatively soon so I
| don't think that will be affected much by all this. Same with
| Clayface since that just entered post production. It's the
| movies coming after (Superman 2, Batman movie thats not tied to
| "The Batman") that will be affected by all this.
|
| My opinion of James Gunn has changed recently (especially after
| the ending of Peacemaker S2) but I still think he's the best
| person possible to be in charge of live action DC. I really
| hope he keeps some form of control but I doubt it...
| goga-piven wrote:
| What is going to happen to all WB/HBO tech? Netflix is obviously
| not interested in their apps or infra, and that probably means a
| big layoff soon.
| SSLy wrote:
| A merger like this takes 1+ year to get approved, and only then
| the companies can start acting together.
|
| So, layoffs not soonest than in 18 months.
| yalogin wrote:
| This should never have been allowed to happen by the regulators,
| but in this administration there are no checks, it's a free for
| all and Netflix knows it. It saw the opportunity and went for it
| sevkih wrote:
| Better netflix than than Ellison
| dzink wrote:
| In 2009 a Turner Broadcasting executive stood in front of
| employees and said they are not worried about Online streaming
| because it only covered 15 minutes of watching time among
| consumers. TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, HBO, Time Inc were all
| under the same ownership umbrella along with the entire MGM
| catalog Ted Turner had acquired at the cost of losing control of
| his company. There were executives who knew what they were doing
| but some were performative - using buzz words and bravado to hide
| that they had no idea. Many were trying to extract as much as
| possible from both ends - 50% of revenue from consumers and 50%
| from advertisers. Even when those two were in direct conflict
| with each-other's interests. They believed content was king and
| so they invested in content, instead of distribution. They
| hoarded their back catalog for years.
|
| In the mean time Netflix started with 3 CDs per month plans and
| when they began streaming on 2007 we didn't use it at start
| because we assumed that it would cut out of the 3 movies
| allotment. So we were scared to use it for a while. Yet we used
| it regularly - because unlike the cable service, streaming didn't
| have ads. And ads were massive massive abuse and waste of time
| for consumers. You can benchmark the level of abuse by the types
| of ads in the super bowl: Alcohol, crypto, gambling, cars...
|
| The reality is that cable was a paid premium service, unlike
| broadcast TV, which was free and littered with ads. Mix the two
| and you lose the golden goose.
|
| That said, the bravado of that executive stuck with me since
| then.
| ayaros wrote:
| Everything is now re-consolidated under different media
| companies now. Instead of Ted Turner we have Larry Ellison, and
| Netflix, and Disney.
|
| So I think the biggest question is, what form of entertainment
| will eventually supplant streaming services? Whatever it is (or
| will be) will almost certainly be disregarded by most people.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Youtube, TikTok, Sora...
| theragra wrote:
| AI generated by demand, most likely. Or AI generated by indie
| creators who have a vision but not a budget, and are provided
| with a platform to create content easily.
| butlike wrote:
| Yeah, I dunno. There's a guy on Instagram right now making
| techno-futuristic stories I equate to micro-episodes
| and...it gets old. Economies of scale would say that
| finding the good content in the sea of dogshit would be
| impossible if everyone was doing that. Premium is premium
| because it's scarce; not everyone is doing it.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Don't worry, there will be algorithms to help you find
| what you like. And content will still go viral within
| subcultures.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| Except the algorithms don't help me find new things I
| like. They never have, and I'm starting to suspect that
| they never will.
|
| What they find - what they're _designed_ to find - is
| more of the same. Which is only "more things I like" in a
| very, very shortsighted sense.
| JeremyJaydan wrote:
| Maybe this is because of scarcity.. if existing algos are
| applied on top of infinitely generated entertainment then
| perhaps we'll see something even more addictive than
| YouTube.
| seanc wrote:
| As always, anticipated (at least in some sense) by Neal
| Stephenson:
|
| https://www.wired.com/1994/10/spew/
| xtracto wrote:
| Reminds me of Red Vs Blue series of 2003 that were only
| using the Halo game. They were quite fun to watch. Imagine
| what can be done with AI nowadays!
| theragra wrote:
| Yeah, currently generated content made with some
| interconnected ideas, vision, script and talent is kinda
| better than I thought it will be. I expected it will be
| extremely sloppy at first.
| ijidak wrote:
| YouTube.
|
| Unfortunately, I think the best competition to streaming
| already exists. And it's already owned by a concentrated
| player.
|
| For example, if indie AI generated content is the next big
| thing, it probably shows up on YouTube.
| vel0city wrote:
| > The reality is that cable was a paid premium service, unlike
| broadcast TV, which was free and littered with ads.
|
| The reality is, most cable channels had ads from day one. Less
| ads than most broadcast stations (which made up most of the
| channels you had on cable at the start anyways) but still a lot
| of the first cable-only channels had ads from the start. WTBS
| had ads on cable in 1976. MSG/USA had ads on cable starting in
| 1977. CNN had ads on day one in 1980. MTV had ads on day one in
| 1981.
| alt227 wrote:
| I dont think I have ever seen a completely ad free cable
| channel?
| vel0city wrote:
| They do (did?) exist. Nickelodeon was originally a
| completely ad-free channel. HBO and Cinemax also didn't
| have ads.
| xp84 wrote:
| Disney Channel in the 90s didn't have any ads. And they
| would show whole Disney movies uninterrupted by anything.
| For this reason it was a paid add-on to your cable package
| though, like HBO -- never included in the basic cable
| package.
|
| In the '00s they still had no real ads, only promo spots
| for mostly other Disney shows on the channel, and the
| occasional tie-in with some other Disney property. I think
| today they have some normal ads but I'm not sure.
| RubberShoes wrote:
| C-SPAN
| butlike wrote:
| Yeah the allure of cable was always that you got more
| (boutique) options. Like an entire channel dedicated to
| cartoons, e.g
| softwaredoug wrote:
| The branding debacle around HBO streaming service was
| malpractice
|
| HBO Go and HBO Now - simultaneously, for some reason
|
| Then HBO Max
|
| Then Max
|
| Now back to HBO Max
|
| How many committee meetings did it take to get this strategy?
|
| It's frankly amazing WB Studio and HBO quality has survived
| this insanity.
|
| Time-Warner and its incarnations is whatever the opposite of
| synergy is (the parts are worse because of the whole)
| pests wrote:
| IIRC the Go / Now switch was due to Go being the app if you
| already paid for cable and wanted to watch HBO by logging
| into your cable provider account. Now was the pure streaming
| option those without cable could purchase. Took a bit to
| consolidate I think.
| xp84 wrote:
| That was the given reason, and I'm sure they knew it was
| ridiculous and fixed it as soon as they could get all their
| ducks in a row, but it sure was comically bad from the
| outside perspective of ordinary users. Even if there had to
| be 2 apps for some contractual reasons I think most people
| would have been more tolerant if they had identical
| functionality and appearance after login, and were just
| titled "HBO Go for Cable" and "HBO Go Streaming."
| dopamean wrote:
| And netflix has ads now.
| corry wrote:
| Tales as old as time, especially in tech: rich monopolistic
| incumbents not seeing the writing on the wall of a new paradigm
| shift; seemingly invincible execs brazenly displaying their
| (incorrect) hot-takes; and the inevitable enshittification of
| the new paradigm as it turns from revolutionary movement to
| ruling-class incentives.
| Barathkanna wrote:
| At this rate Netflix isn't building a streaming service, it's
| building a monopoly starter pack. Give it a few more acquisitions
| and the "Are you still watching?" prompt will legally qualify as
| a government notice.
| jeffwask wrote:
| Pretty soon all media will be owned by 4 tech billionaires. They
| have done so well with preserving a free and open internet I
| cannot see why people are concerned they are gobbling up all the
| alternative legacy communications platforms.
| alams wrote:
| Netflix's content selection has always felt weaker than
| traditional studios. Sometimes it even looks like filmmakers take
| Netflix's massive budgets but don't give them the same level of
| serious, polished work they deliver elsewhere.
|
| So, if Netflix ends up managing Warner Bros or HBO, it's hard not
| to worry. HBO and Warner Bros are known for premium, high-caliber
| content, and Netflix's track record suggests the overall quality
| could easily take a hit.
| cramcgrab wrote:
| Another dying industry acquiring another dying industry. Reminds
| me of Oracle buying Sun Microsystems.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Three wishes - looney tunes and animatics full and uncensored.
| Don't update them for modern sensibilities. No new looney tunes
| content unless made by very talented people that love the old
| ones.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| The sad thing is the WB Studio had a successful year and is
| healthy.
|
| It's all the other idiotic stuff that's been attached to WB over
| the years that has broken the business. Time Warner AoL
| Discovery... is a poster child for what goes wrong when merger
| after merger happens.
|
| A restructured WB Studio + HBO might be a good business.
| autoexec wrote:
| I look forward to all my favorite shows on HBO max ending a
| season with a cliffhanger and then getting canceled regardless of
| their popularity
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Memories of AOL-TimeWarner...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarnerMedia#AOL-Time_Warner_me...
| keithwbacon wrote:
| I think the way they'll justify it is by framing it as Disney's
| empire versus a combined Netflix + Warner Bros empire.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| This is terrible news. Expect enslopification of some of your
| favorite IPs. Christ.
| thedangler wrote:
| You subscription is about to go up.
|
| I'm going to start looking into alternative solutions ;)
|
| Anyone have a solid alternative solution for local streaming?
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| 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 everywhere inside their
| apps I would've cancelled any remaining subscription at the
| latest.
| kwar13 wrote:
| > back to torrenting
|
| lots of people have, and we've come now full circle. I wonder
| if it was inevitable.
| an0malous wrote:
| In a society that's built on the foundations of perpetual
| profit growth it is. Sometimes you just can't innovate, so
| instead of improving the product you cut the costs and
| enshittify. We're in an enshittification regime right now.
|
| Why are there alternating cycles of innovation and
| enshittification? I think it's because investors are always
| trying to pull forward profit, but because they only have a
| 10 year horizon on investment strategy they tend to create
| cycles that are around that same period. If there was less
| investment, the innovation would be slower but the
| reactionary enshittification would be lessened too.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| It's better than ever with stuff like jellyfin/plex and all the
| sonarr/radarr... apps. I've been running bitmagnet too which
| has been great for actually finding torrents.
| wombat-man wrote:
| 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.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Irrelevant to me. The amount of TV shows I enjoyed that got
| canned after S01 has burnt me so much that I wait until I
| know if there's a sensible finale at the end or if it ends on
| a cliffhanger that'll never be resolved before I even dive
| into a new show.
| emsign wrote:
| Firefly *cries*
| roboror wrote:
| >Companies look at views and revenue to decide what content
| to actually make.
|
| Social discourse is also heavily weighted
| squigz wrote:
| > 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 wonder if any of them track torrent metrics for this
| reason.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I'm almost back there at this point given how annoying
| streaming services are getting.
| emsign wrote:
| I also collect discarded physical media, there's still lots of
| people who want to get rid of their collections for nothing
| because of "Dude, there's streaming now, duh."
| Retz4o4 wrote:
| Best sources to start accumulating? Just ebay?
| teach wrote:
| Likely Facebook Marketplace or maybe Craigslist. eBay is
| pretty rough these days by all accounts.
| skeptrune wrote:
| Hard agree. My read on the whole situation is that this is
| R.I.P. for Netflix as a tech company.
| jaggederest wrote:
| We're going to see something like the way Boeing was hollowed
| out by taking over McDonnell Douglas I'd guess. I have no
| insider knowledge but WB doesn't seem like a poison pill you
| can take without adverse impact.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| One only has to look at the word of mouth reputation of Plex
| these days to know what's going on. I'd say more of my circle
| knows about it than doesn't, and a solid 15% run one or use
| someone else's, including my non-techie friends.
|
| Shoutout to Jellyfin it's great, but it is not nearly as
| turnkey, so Plex is clearly the dominant player for folks
| hosting their own media.
| s0rce wrote:
| I found Jellyfin was super easy but I came from XBMC/Kodi
| which was a big struggle.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| I think what trips people up with jellyfin is making sure
| they aren't exposing their network. Getting it to work at
| home is one thing, getting it to work outside your home is
| a different beast
| somehnguy wrote:
| 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.
| issafram wrote:
| 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.
| muterad_murilax wrote:
| I'm sorry, "the *arr stack"?
| darknavi wrote:
| Radarr (movies), Sonarr (tv), etc.
|
| https://github.com/Radarr/Radarr
|
| https://github.com/Sonarr/Sonarr
| dfee wrote:
| i was in Bend, Oregon last weekend at the last Blockbuster, and
| it was really appealing.
|
| - blu ray rentals were 99C/ / wk
|
| - a vast trove of content
|
| - no lock-in or monthly fees
|
| sure, you actually have to make it to the store... but, 2007
| never looked better.
|
| now, Netflix was distributing by mail, and i think the promise
| was for them to stream all their content into homes. but, then
| it got messy.
|
| but yeah, for 99C/ / movie, I'm happy to pay. i'll even
| occasionally pay to rent through AppleTV.
| Spacemolte wrote:
| Ads. This is how you get ads in streaming services.
| bradyd wrote:
| Both Netflix and HBO already have ads.
| dugmartin wrote:
| They got it for cheap. AOL paid $165 billion for Time Warner in
| 2000. Is Netflix the next AOL?
| jmyeet wrote:
| Whether or not this deal gets regulatory approval depends
| entirely on whether or not Reed Hastings sufficiently kisses the
| ring when it comes to Donald Trump.
|
| I'm personally against this. We've had too much consolidation.
| It's subscribers who will pay for this with hiked subscription
| fees.
|
| Any pretense of government regulation is basically gone.
| Everything is for sale. What determines outcomes is corruption
| and loyalty. This is really no different to the Russian oligarchs
| under Putin. The SEC, FTC and DOJ are a joke, just tools to
| punish ideological foes and people who don't pay up.
|
| All these companies are a consequence will become more
| ideologically conservative and that's a real problem for media
| companies because conservatives can't produce good content. Good
| content challenges the status quo and asks questions, two things
| conservatives simply don't tolerate. This will do nothing good
| for HBO.
| joshyg wrote:
| tech company buying warner bros, what could go wrong?
| newhotelowner wrote:
| Netflix is buying WB for "friends". That show will be on air for
| another 50 years.
| yearolinuxdsktp wrote:
| This sucks, now HBO content will disappear from being searchable
| in Apple TV.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| > from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to
| modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends
|
| Holy crap did they actually put Citizen Kane and Friends in the
| same sentence?
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| I didn't really understand why they'd want this, but I think now
| its strategic protection from someone else consolidating with
| them. One company with that huge of a library could put a lot of
| pressure on them by withholding content and with their competing
| unified streaming service.
| Funes- wrote:
| ...and the global oligopoly grows ever smaller.
| jandrusk wrote:
| This is going to be an off the wall statement given this
| audience, but WWE signed an exclusive deal with NetFlix for 10
| years I think in an effort to counter their main competitor AEW,
| which signed a deal with HBO Max shortly before that. Now they'll
| both potentially be on the same platform, which WWE will hate as
| it will be interesting in having two competitive pro wrestling
| promotions on the same platform.
| devrundown wrote:
| I'm pretty sure WWE would have an exclusivity clause that would
| prevent another pro-wrestling program on Netflix. But who
| knows!
| alt227 wrote:
| WWE dont have the clout they used to. I remember when they
| were the number 1 viewed website on the internet. Nowadays
| the MMA & UFC is much more valuable.
| devrundown wrote:
| Well UFC and WWE are both part of the TKO group.
| alt227 wrote:
| Im not sure how that is a response to my comment about
| one being more valuable than the other.
| seatac76 wrote:
| The gov will block this for the wrong reasons(they want Ellison
| to win this) but here's hoping this and Paramount both get
| blocked, this level of concentration is not good.
| UltraSane wrote:
| The US government made it illegal for movie studios to own movie
| theaters to prevent studios from only showing movies in theaters
| they own. Similar laws need to be passed to force streaming
| content to be shown on all services.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| So WB buys/merges w/ discovery to break it back off as part of a
| merger. Seems sort of silly. Curious if this means pretty much
| all WB/Disc/HBO content will end up on Netflix.
| jeremy_k wrote:
| Please Netflix, green light Westworld season 5
| stevenwoo wrote:
| That's the exact opposite of Netflix most recent history,
| Westworld was an expensive production and viewing numbers on
| HBO were declining as seasons went on. Even relatively
| inexpensive looking Netflix shows got cancelled, i.e. GLOW, I
| Am Not Okay with This, Santa Clarita Diet, never mind shows
| that were less expensive than Westworld that had poor Netflix
| viewer metrics like The Residence, The OA, probably lots more I
| am leaving out. Early years maybe, like when they kept Orange
| is the New Black and House of Cards going to completion or
| resurrected Arrested Development.
| trentnix wrote:
| Netflix acquires Warner Bros and uncensored Looney Tunes and
| uncensored Tom & Jerry were never seen again.
| gcanyon wrote:
| I was working at HBO when Ted Sarandos said, "The goal is to
| become HBO faster than HBO can become us."
|
| I knew then how that would play out, although I didn't have this
| exact outcome on my bingo card.
| okokwhatever wrote:
| F...k , more forced inclusion on theaters now...
| arthurfirst wrote:
| I am still shocked not to see the opposite order -- but those
| days are long gone.
| dboreham wrote:
| ...If they pay a large enough bribe.
| smallerfish wrote:
| I'm a fan. Injecting a huge catalog into Netflix is a win for
| consumers who want just one subscription. And injecting studio
| talent into Netflix (assuming the merge gives WB creatives
| influence) can only help.
|
| HBO's tech sucks. Apple is (in my experience) hard to get running
| in the Android ecosystem. Most of the other options are too
| narrow in catalog, or ad ridden.
|
| Consolidating streaming services down to a handful of offerings
| will make price competition more fierce because they'll have
| richer catalogs to do battle with.
| alt227 wrote:
| Netflix have never been a streaming service to put loads of
| good content on their service and keep it there. I would
| imagine they will use this injection of content to drip feed
| and slowly rotate movie franchises in order to keep users
| interested.
| hnben wrote:
| > Consolidating streaming services down to a handful of
| offerings will make price competition more fierce because
| they'll have richer catalogs to do battle with.
|
| this is not how markets usually work.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Correct, but the current market is not working. 15+ streaming
| services is terrible for consumers. Catalogs are compromised.
| Bigger services can push prices up because they have more
| stuff. Clearly if there are too few players then there's less
| competition and no price pressure, but there's a sweet spot
| between what exists today and that.
| dangus wrote:
| This makes zero sense.
|
| Can you name another scenario where consolidation helped
| the consumer? Where a sweet spot involved more
| consolidation?
|
| Did Breyer's ice cream get better when it was purchased by
| Unilever?
|
| Did your local grocery store chain get better after it was
| acquired by Kroger or Albertsons?
|
| Did the smartphone market get better when Microsoft
| acquired Nokia and HP acquired Palm?
|
| What about Hashicorp? Sun Microsystems? Dark Sky? Red Hat?
| Slack? Nest? Any of these product markets get better post-
| consolidation?
|
| I struggle to think of a single example of a product
| category that got better with industry consolidation.
| roboror wrote:
| It's bad for everyone. Fewer buyers = less content made and
| lower budgets, fewer voices being heard.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| Nearly every media journalist in Hollywood considers this to be
| the worst outcome for Hollywood.
| sega_sai wrote:
| On one hand it is good that the maybe the streaming will be split
| into less subscriptions, but on other hand, I think the only way
| forward is to simply prohibit exclusive streaming rights. I.e.
| any movie streaming rights should be sold to anyone who wants to
| buy them for the same price. That is only way to enable
| competition in streaming.
| nielsbot wrote:
| I... actually like this idea. Similar to the Robinson Patman
| Act.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act
| purplejacket wrote:
| Does this mean that now I can watch Bugs Bunny on Netflix?
| benatkin wrote:
| Seems like it. I guess it also means Bugs Bunny t-shirts will
| be licensed by Netflix.
|
| They could also do crossover merch, putting Bugs Bunny on a
| Squid Game jacket: https://www.netflix.shop/en-
| pe/collections/squid-game/produc...
|
| They'll have to step up their game in plush, this to me looks
| like it's from CafePress: https://www.netflix.shop/en-
| pe/collections/squid-game/produc...
| almosthere wrote:
| This should be an illegal aquisition
| mistyvales wrote:
| Netflix seems to hate theatrical releases, so I hope this doesn't
| affect any small cinemas that want to screen older WB titles. I
| know when Disney bought Fox, it got a bit harder to book films.
| sfifs wrote:
| Hopefully I'll finally get to see Chernobyl and Game of Thrones.
| It's virtually impossible outside of US or Europe to legally
| stream so many movies and series.
| alt227 wrote:
| When you literally _cant_ do something legally, theres always
| somewhere greyer /blacker to move to!
| trepaura wrote:
| This was a very foolish choice on Netflix's part. Most if the
| iconic IP from WB/HBO has gone down hill in a dramatic fashion
| over the last decade.
|
| Game of Thrones was good for a few seasons, but half way through
| the fans started dropping almost as quickly as main characters.
| DC movies have had very few genuine successes, even if they've
| technically turned a profit.
|
| Putting all that content up on Netflix would be unlikely to pull
| in that many more subscriptions, and would require dropping the
| existing streaming service(s) and agreements to allow for
| exclusivity.
|
| This doesn't bring significant talent or IP to Netflix, it's just
| an attempt to grab market share. I doubt they'll try to move
| anything out of WB/HBO's existing streaming platforms or
| agreements. This just looks like an attempt to increase profits
| by simply buying a profitable company and letting them mostly
| continue to function with minimal changes.
|
| In other word, this probably isn't the worst acquisition possible
| for consumers, but it certainly won't improve life for anyone to
| let it happen, and it does consolidate market share and control
| when it comes to media. This probably won't be hugely evil, but
| it won't be good either.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Don't forget that WB also managed to burn Christopher Nolan
| after over a decade and lost one of the best (and most
| profitable) directors to have ever lived.
|
| Personally I just hope Netflix takes interest in the UCI
| mountain bike racing and does a better job with it.
| eisfresser wrote:
| Yes, they really killed MTB. If only Re Bull TV would buy the
| Discovery/Eurosport part. Or GCN!
| anthomtb wrote:
| None of the live sports programming, including MTB, will be
| part of the acquisition.
|
| https://www.pinkbike.com/news/netflix-in-exclusive-talks-
| for...
|
| (yes Pinkbike is my source)
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Yeah saw that after posting. Pretty tragic.
| rottencupcakes wrote:
| I don't know what you remember, but that didn't happen to GoT.
| It was highly watched through the end, with increasing
| viewership every season.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F1...
| Aloisius wrote:
| It's not like Netflix is limited to Warner's back catalog.
| Warner owns exclusive rights to make new
| movies/television/games for quite a lot of things.
|
| That's valuable in a world where copyright has everything made
| in most people's lifetime locked up for another century.
| WhyOhWhyQ wrote:
| For cinema, I guess that's all folks.
| rdiddly wrote:
| I realize this is about money, and it's 2025 right now, and I'm
| probably just old, but what will happen to quality? I actually
| laughed, twice, because they did this, twice:
|
| > _Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as [list of some of
| the greatest classics of all time] will join Netflix's extensive
| portfolio including [list of laughable junk], creating an
| extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide._
|
| And then just a few lines later (and I won't snarkily shorten
| this one):
|
| > _By combining Warner Bros.' incredible library of shows and
| movies--from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane
| to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends--with our
| culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters
| and Squid Game, we 'll be able to do that even better._
|
| Like did I really just see Citizen Kane in the same sentence as
| KPop Demon Hunters? Might as well add Ow, My Balls to the list,
| that's how jarring the contrast was for me.
| armandososa wrote:
| Remember when the saying was that Netflix was trying to become
| HBO before HBO could become Netflix? That turned out weird
| chirau wrote:
| John Oliver is a really happy man today
| newbish wrote:
| Can't wait for him to talk shit about "new business daddy".
| quitit wrote:
| It's not my business: could someone shed light on how this would
| better serve their respective customers, versus keeping them
| separate. Or in other words "what will be possible by this merger
| that isn't possible now?"
| prirun wrote:
| I loved Netflix when they had the DVD service and the
| recommendation competition because it actually suggested shows I
| would enjoy.
|
| Once they started producing their own stuff, recommendations no
| longer worked: they just promoted whatever crap they produced
| themselves. And with that, trying to find a show I wanted to
| watch became so much effort that I canceled altogether. Same goes
| for all the other streaming services.
| dominikposmyk wrote:
| https://www.theinformation.com/articles/netflixs-warner-purc...
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Fortunately, the Warner sister, Dot, will remain independent.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Is it strange that NFLX is down on this news? I would have
| thought this is a big win for them, as they are consolidating
| power?
| cyanydeez wrote:
| E N S H I T T I F I C A T I O N
|
| Hey America, you're the problem.
| trunnell wrote:
| Commenters here seem to be missing the larger David vs. Goliath
| story...
|
| Netflix was a silicon valley start-up with a tech founder (Reed)
| who teamed up with an LA movie buff (Ted). They tried to solve a
| problem: it was too hard to watch movies at home, and Hollywood
| seemed to hate new tech. The movie industry titans alternated
| between fighting Netflix and making deals. They fought Netflix's
| ability to bulk purchase and rent out DVDs. Later, they lobbed
| insults even while taking Netflix's money for content licensing.
| Here's Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, in 2010:
|
| "It's a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over
| the world? I don't think so." [1]
|
| Remember: this was the same movie industry that gave us the MPAA
| and the DMCA. They were trying to ensure the internet, and new
| tech in general, had zero impact on them. Streaming movies and TV
| probably wouldn't exist if Netflix had not forced the issue.
|
| Netflix buying HBO is significant, but also just another chapter
| in this story of Netflix's internet distribution model out-
| competing the Hollywood incumbents. Even now in 2025, at least 12
| years after it was perfectly clear that streaming direct to the
| consumer would be the future, the industry is still struggling to
| turn the corner. Instead, they're selling themselves to Netflix.
|
| I was at Netflix 2009-2019. It was shocking how easily our little
| "Albanian army" overthrew the empire. Our opponents barely fought
| back, and when they did, they were often incompetent with tech.
| To me, this is a story about how competent tech carried the day.
|
| Netflix has been rapidly buying and building studio capacity for
| a decade now. Adding the WB studio production capacity is a huge
| win for Netflix. It makes those studios more productive: each day
| of content production is now worth more when distributed via
| Netflix's global platform.
|
| Same with WB and HBO catalog and IP: it's worth more when its
| available to Netflix's approx 300 million members. Netflix can
| make new TV and films based on that IP, and it will be worth more
| than if it was only on HBO's platforms.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13bewkes.h...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It's nice to see business that rewarded customers with
| convenience win in the end.
|
| Well, except for Netflix refusing their catalogue to be indexed
| in the TV app on macOS and iOS. I won't pay for Netflix until
| they drop that anti customer practice.
|
| If you want me to buy the video content you're selling, it
| better be searchable in the TV app. And if not, there should be
| a better reason than you want to keep people trapped in the
| Netflix app.
| ethin wrote:
| This entire Warner Bros saga has just been insanely pathetically
| sad to watch, because it demonstrates that WB has completely lost
| touch with reality and that the C-suites at the top have zero
| innovation or anything else to give at this point. The company
| has gone through so many megamergers and acquisitions which just
| added more and more debt to the company that at this point it
| wouldn't surprise me if Netflix just declares bankruptcy with it
| or something, because it's a completely lost cause. Of course,
| the people responsible for this won't learn a thing (even though
| they're making the exact mistakes of the Cable industry they
| replaced), and will continue doing the same thing over and over
| again, because, clearly, learning from mistakes is just not
| possible for these people.
| thevillagechief wrote:
| 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.
| emsign wrote:
| You're almost making it sound like billionaires are fulfilling
| the people's wishes instead of their own.
| ikkun wrote:
| 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 probably love
| to have tons of exclusive content, and they're trying this with
| podcasts etc, but the music industry hasn't been able to
| enshittify as much as the movie industry, yet.
| Kapura wrote:
| I feel like when I was growing up, I learned about how
| monopolization was bad for society when it came to industries
| like steel and rail. but for some reason in the 21st century
| we've decided that maybe corporations are somehow... better
| citizens or something? despite the evidence?
|
| Obviously, the reason it's gotten this bad is that lobbying is
| legal and private campaign funding is mandatory. Thanks again,
| citizens united!
| cced wrote:
| _We_ didn 't decided that- _they_ did.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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 back to HN or whatever else.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Wow the up and comer swallows an extremely established brand
| andrewla wrote:
| If I had a nickel for every time a company that sends out optical
| disks bought Warner Brothers, I'd have $0.10, which is not a lot,
| but strange that it happened twice.
| VanshPatel99 wrote:
| R.I.P to the quality of HBO shows and looking forward to slow
| burn shows getting cancelled more now. HBO has been going through
| a really bad phase recently ha. With Discovery, WB and now this.
| Is it too much to hope that the quality of content won't drop to
| Netflix level? I just hope the "give writers the time and
| resources" mindset of HBO doesn't change
| chaseadam17 wrote:
| Meta playbook.
|
| Netflix was a great product innovator for a long time but now
| that they're running out of ideas they're pivoting to
| acquisitions.
|
| I guess one big difference is that their direct competitors
| aren't startups - they're Amazon, Apple, etc. - so perhaps this
| plays out more as a race to acquire studios, IP, and creative
| talent.
|
| Then if/when they have a monopoly they'll charge $20 a month and
| still play ads every 5 min and we'll be back to cable.
| trusche wrote:
| Really conflicted on this one. On the one hand, having to pay for
| N+1 streaming services because none of my N favourite shows are
| on any one of them sucks. On the other hand, monopoly.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Netflix stopped being the good(/least bad) guys a while ago.
|
| They've been raising prices relentlessly, banning casting,
| criminalizing account sharing (which THEY started by
| introducing profiles)... They're just as selfish and consumer-
| hostile as most other big companies.
| chistev wrote:
| We will never have another The Wire under Netflix
| flenserboy wrote:
| ok. it isn't as if there's been more than a handful of movies
| worth watching which have been made in the last 10 years.
| consolidating catalogs of at-best-mediocre platforms isn't going
| to make things any better or worse.
| 627467 wrote:
| The current US admin will probably thumbs up this deal, but they
| will like face challenges elsewhere. The huge breakup fees seems
| to hint a high risk of non-approval
| roguecoder wrote:
| As long as David Zaslav is kicked to the curb instead of given
| power inside Netflix, this could still be a win for the world. I
| don't know how else we were going to get him out of there.
|
| Heck, Netflix might actually promote Our Flag Means Death!
|
| (HBO being so terrible at modern promotion is what ultimately got
| them to this place. I found multiple series I really enjoyed
| there, but always by total accident scrolling alphabetically. The
| first time I ever saw a promotion for Warrior was when it came to
| Netflix.)
| bsimpson wrote:
| From what I've read, Ellison was ready to make him co-CEO of
| Warner Paramount, and then threatened a lawsuit alleging that
| WBD management has its thumbs on the scales because it's
| prioritizing bids that give their executives sweetheart deals
| after the merger (in this case, with Netflix).
| arkis22 wrote:
| I think theres a possibility that Zaslav prefers Netflix
| because if the government denies the merger he walks away with
| the breakup fee and can keep running WB as his own fiefdom
| m3kw9 wrote:
| How is Apple gonna respond
| markaroo wrote:
| YouTube and Tiktok are the real winners here. The enshitification
| of traditional media will accelerate.
| whycome wrote:
| Netflix will adapt AI-driven Streaming on demand content. But,
| critically, it will now be backed up by the entire IP catalogue
| of WB. Wanna watch a new Superman movie where he meets Harry
| Pitter? Ok. Wanna see the Matrix as an animated version that
| includes the Flintstones? Ok.
| phildini wrote:
| It's time for Netflix' greedy acqs Taking value to the max So
| just sit back and relax and give us all your cash We're now a
| Netflix acq!
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Breathe a sigh of relief WB wasn't bought by David Ellison.
|
| Cry softly the next Superman movie will barely be in theaters...
|
| Surely there will be a kpop-demon hunters X DC universe X mortal
| kombat game that comes out of this...
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Reminder that Superman enters public domain in 2034, Batman in
| 2035, and Wonder Woman on 2037.
| twirlip wrote:
| 1938 Superman didn't fly; he jumped. And he was named Kal-L.
| But he was also a lot more of a social justice warrior. His
| chest emblem was different, too. But yeah, I expect good
| things.
| mrandish wrote:
| The most realistic acquirers were Paramount/Skydance or Netflix.
| Paramount/Skydance is a relatively new-ish entity with David
| Ellison (Larry's son) as CEO. The general sense in Hollywood is
| Paramount/Skydance will do little high-brow, art house or awards-
| fodder films but they will at least distribute films primarily to
| theaters (they promised to release at least 14 Warner films per
| year to theaters if their bid was accepted).
|
| Netflix is mostly uninterested in theatrical distribution so the
| main practical impact of this most of us see day to day may be
| less theatrical release movies and probably fewer higher budget
| films being made at all.
|
| Caveats include that the deal has to actually get regulatory
| approval in the U.S. and EU and survive potential (inevitable?)
| shareholder lawsuits. Netflix's offer reportedly involved less
| cash and more debt. Paramount/Skydance argued regulatory approval
| and the heavy debt made Netflix's offer less attractive than
| their own despite Netflix's higher top-line price.
| neves wrote:
| Where are American anti-trust instituitions?
| j45 wrote:
| I guess this will mean WB content will also start to become hyper
| addictive for kids.
| xp84 wrote:
| Worked out great for AOL and AT&T, so IDK what could go wrong
| here.
| ksherlock wrote:
| "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." -- Ted
| Sarandos, Netflix co-CEO, circa 2012.
|
| (Actually, he walked it back slightly in 2024 -
| https://archive.ph/V5Kt1).
| daseiner1 wrote:
| true inflection point of the already prolonged withering away and
| inevitable death of one of America's great art forms.
|
| yes i'm aware of the proud film traditions of france, italy,
| england, & japan (among others). nevertheless the paradigms of
| popular film are uniquely homegrown.
|
| netflix is not in the film business. they are in the streaming
| business.
|
| yet another example of the rape aka "enshittification" of
| culture. why share an experience together as a public in front of
| the silver screen? much easier to sit alone on our fucking
| couches while we doomscroll and dick around.
|
| shameful.
| daft_pink wrote:
| I'm really disappointed, because Netflix doesn't sell any of
| their content. You have to subscribe.
|
| I own Soprano's, White Lotus, Batman Movies, etc on regular
| media, but I can't get shows like Black Mirror outside of a
| subscription for the rest of my life.
|
| I really hope they continue to offer physical and digital sales
| of their media for those who perfer to buy instead of renting.
|
| Paramount, Disney, NBC Universal, etc all still sell their
| content even though they operate subscription services and I wish
| Netflix would do the same.
| LogicFailsMe wrote:
| So no more whining about licensing. disallowing user-friendly
| features like casting content they will now own I guess?
| jolt42 wrote:
| Man I wish they'd continue The Looney Tunes Show.
| atbpaca wrote:
| I just hope they won't destroy sagas like they did to the
| Witcher. In other words, I don't think this is good for future
| content as there is a risk movies/series will follow the same
| scripts, underlying story plots, cultural norms, same
| cinematography, etc. Quality going down.
|
| Moreover, this also means more time for ads to pay for this
| merger.
| intexpress wrote:
| A few recent Warner Bros films / coproductions
|
| Imagine if these had not had theatrical releases, or, had only
| had 1 week limited releases just to qualify for awards..
|
| Tenet
|
| Dune
|
| The Batman
|
| Barbie
|
| Furiosa
|
| Twisters
|
| Minecraft
|
| Sinners
|
| Superman
|
| Weapons
|
| One Battle After Another
| harmmonica wrote:
| Couple of unrelated thoughts on this very long thread...
|
| 1. I'm sure multiple people have pointed it out, but for all the
| talk of a bubble, the AOL Time Warner merger was likely the
| biggest canary in the coal mine for what was to come. History
| repeats itself with literally the same brand and a lot of the
| same assets? Sort of depressing if the bubble does now burst
| because it's like we never learn our lesson
|
| 2. Trump wanted the Ellisons because they support him. There's
| almost no question in my mind the government will fight this.
| Will they win in court? Hard to say, but my quick thoughts:
|
| If market cap was the basis for antitrust then the answer would
| be maybe, but that's not the basis for it. Is revenue the basis?
| No, but Disney generates more than Netflix, so does Comcast, so
| as a proxy for market share, which I think is somewhat the basis
| for antitrust (iamaal) it seems like there's no chance this
| creates some anticompetitive media juggernaut. But then the
| question is whether streaming is different than more general
| media. And if it is, how do you define the market when a company
| like Apple is involved in streaming but not fully a media
| company? Does that balance things out a bit? I don't think it
| does because I don't think anyone could claim that Apple
| counterbalances Netflix in streaming market share. If anything it
| would be a further argument against Netflix having Netflix and
| HBOMax.
|
| Now having written all of that, I think the government would win
| because Paramount streaming with HBO would at least stand a
| chance in the _streaming market_ against Netflix. And then also
| increase general media competition because you 'd have
| Disney/ABC, Comcast/NBC, Paramount/CBS with the WBD addition
| improving Paramount's competitive position relative to the other
| two.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| On the news of Netflix acquiring Warner Bros, I'm reminded of how
| good Netflix has been at innovating their business model.
|
| Over the past 27 years, their business model has changed multiple
| times and each evolution appears to be in direct response to the
| bottleneck of growth, from maintaining inventory of DVD to
| acquiring global streaming rights.
|
| Year / Business Model / Bottleneck to Growth
|
| 1998 / Sell DVDs over the internet / Need to continually
| replenish DVD inventory,
|
| 1999-2006 / Rent DVDs over the internet / USPS delivery & return
| times
|
| 2007 / Stream movies over the internet / Acquiring US streaming
| rights to a massive library of movies
|
| 2009 / Start producing movies (Netflix Originals) / Number of
| subscribers watching Netflix Originals
|
| 2010-2012 / Global expansion; Canada, South America, Europe /
| Maintaining rights globally
|
| 2025 / Acquire Warner Bros Discovery
| metalman wrote:
| oh good!, it's easier to avoid one thing rather than two!
| imagetic wrote:
| Ugh.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Beyond sad.
| testbjjl wrote:
| I once worked for a tech company that bought Warner Brothers,
| well time Warner. Did not end well for the tech company (AOL). In
| my opinion at the time, the cultures between the two were so
| different. Fly by night tech guys making a decent amount of money
| mixing with people who worked long to get where they were in the
| content space, plus the commercial internet was "newer" e.g. less
| established then. As they used to say, content is king. Good
| luck.
| sneak wrote:
| I know the guideline about complaining about site display and
| rendering, but there's more to this one, I promise.
|
| This gives a CloudFront 403 error when loaded from a Mullvad VPN
| endpoint in the US.
|
| How can I vote with my wallet for privacy support from a vendor
| when there are only a few vendors and they _all_ block VPNs? This
| is bigger than Netflix, bigger even than streaming media.
|
| I fear that we are very rapidly advancing to a point where you
| can't use any of the "normal internet" and the mass-appeal normie
| services without doing full identification with _some_ unique
| identifier. For most apps, it's your phone number (which is 1:1
| with a person and these days never changes). For websites, it's
| going to be your residential home (IP) address.
|
| I'm glad I downloaded all the movies I've ever cared about and
| have local copies of 100% of them. I doubt I'll be permitted to
| use any of these services that stream them now, even if I wanted
| to.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| The streaming platforms suffer from fragmentation right now:
| People don't like hopping between a dozen different streaming
| platforms to consume entertainment - regardless of price or ads.
| If you give them an option for a single place where all their
| media is, they will use it, regardless of what is happening
| behind the scenes.
|
| They will never all merge into one because of regulatory pressure
| and because they are competitors.
|
| It seems nice to have one less streaming platform in some ways,
| but it's not a pathway forward.
|
| I'll continue to use Jellyfin with a few hard drives.
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