The best outcome would be for all of the bids to fail, all the streaming services would bleed money due to people sick of the siloing, and for there to be multiple streaming services competing on experience because they all have access to the same catalog.
The second best outcome would be the cartoon villain Larry not getting what he wants.
Which is why the model that would actually be good for consumers and the model that absolutely no content producer wants which is splitting content creation from distribution isn't going to happen. Let a bunch of companies compete over being the best streaming platform and then let those companies all compete for licensing deals for content.
I think a big copyright holders in a strange way actually don't want a repeat of cable. They want all content to be exclusive by default to their own streaming service.
When you make something (eg TV shows), you might also want a direct relationship with your customer (eg viewer). Consequently, A platform where you get to choose how to present and celebrate the stories seems like a reasonable thing.
In the US, the film industry originally worked like the streaming industry does today. Besides just creating films, the major studios distributed them through the theaters they owned. If you wanted to see a Paramount film you had to go to a Paramount owned theater, if you wanted to see an MGM film you had to go to an MGM owned theater, and so on. In 1948, this distribution scheme was ruled to be in violation of antitrust law and the studios were forced to divest themselves of their theaters. Now you can see major films in any studio and the theaters have to compete on price and amenities. I don't see why the same logic shouldn't apply to streaming services.
Here in Norway we have a law for mobile carriers which is intended to prevent moats. It states that carriers must provide access for a "reasonable price" to other phone companies. It seems to have worked fairly well.
One could imagine something similar, that sure you can put your own movie or TV show on your own website, but you must also sell it to companies who asks on reasonable terms. So Netflix can make a movie but couldn't say no to say Plex if they wanted to buy the rights to show it on Plex.tv.
This is completely different. Cell phone infrastructure in particular is by nature a natural monopoly. Two carriers can’t operate over the same frequency and only certain frequencies are conducive for cell phones.
Content has no such restriction. Are you really saying every piece of content anyone produces must be licensed? Who decides what is “reasonable”?
I want Netflix to lose. After living with their binge release schedule for however long now I think we're all worse off for it. So I want less of the industry to use it.
You don't need the streaming service though, you can just do without or find other methods of obtaining their content. It's not like food, electricity, or water where you may have no actual options or very limited options. Movies and shows are wants, not needs, and people can walk away and fill the time some other way.
Saying everyone should just quit streaming and go touch grass or read a book is not a productive recommendation. It's been tried for decades and fails because people really like TV and Movies. Given that, the discussion here needs to start from the assumption that people will continue to watch TV and movies and suffer meaningful quality of life impacts when they do not.
Once Netflix buys all of these companies, you won't ever be able to watch a WB movie without a $25 netflix sub per month. (and yeah, when they are done buying all the competition that's what the monthly will be.
> Once Netflix buys all of these companies, you won't ever be able to watch a WB movie without a $25 netflix sub per month. (and yeah, when they are done buying all the competition that's what the monthly will be.
That's kind of a silly argument. "People are better off paying $100+/month for 4+ streaming services than $25/month for one that has everything."
If your argument were that you'd have to pay more than the current combined cost, it'd be a better argument against mergers. Arguing against something because it's a better deal is just strange.
It's not that silly of an argument when you factor in Blu-Ray as the other side of "won't be able to watch a WB movie without". Right now the only Netflix "Exclusives" you can find on Blu-Ray are the ones they source from Sony, Warner Brothers, or Paramount. If they own Warner Brothers one of those Blu-Ray sources goes away.
Instead of a one-time Blu-Ray purchase for ~$25 for a movie to watch as many times as you'd like, it's an ongoing subscription for $25/month. If you only want to watch that one movie in two different calendar months, you've easily doubled your spend.
(Yes, it is still apples-to-oranges because you may watch more than one movie in a month, but the flipside is that the $25/month is a variable catalog fee. The movie you want to watch may be "vaulted" that second month you want to go watch it. With Blu-Ray you control your film catalog, with Netflix some finance team does.)
(Also, yes, easy to forget Blu-Ray in this debate because Blu-Ray is dying/dead, especially in physical retail with Target and Best Buy dropping its sections. You can also substitute a lot of the same arguments here with arguments for Movies Anywhere and/or iTunes Store.)
thats not how most people do streaming, they consume everything on netflix - when the content gets stale, they cancel, move to P+, consume for a few months, stale, d+, stale, A+, etc....
1 at a time
I'm never paying any of them, anything, ever again, but I'm sure we'll all get a little fucked somehow. I do hope it triggers more in-fighting amongst the scum of the earth.
Don't worry, no matter which way it goes, each executive will still figure out a way to give themselves hundreds of millions of dollars for their hard work.
