Netflix announced the blockbuster deal with Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday morning. It has agreed to buy the legendary TV and movie studio and assets like the HBO Max streaming service for $72 billion.
Soooo, does that mean consumers have one less streaming service to subscribe to or would Netflix just do a price hike to make up for it?
Oh yes, market concentration definitely improves the user experience in the long run.
and then we will also see trickle down working?
Provides more opportunities to loot the seas.
I have been involved in that ship for a long time (I never gave up) but it is evident that the best years in series production are behind us and less competition I don’t think will improve it, it doesn’t matter how you look at it, stranger things is not at the level of house of cards to name two from the same platform
Probably like Disney/Hulu
They’ll try a bundle deal to see if people pay for it, then if not slowly bleed shows from one service to another.
Maybe eventually combine them but they’ll try to keep paying for both as long as possible
I bet it will be more like Prime where they display everything they own to tempt you, but there’s an increasing number of additional subscriptions you actually need to access the content.
When Discovery merged with WB/HBOMAX most (all?) of the Discovery content (previously only on the Discovery+ paid streaming service) showed up on HBOMAX. So perhaps it will mean something similar here that it will mean getting more for less like it did then.
¿Porque no los dos?
This means the would-be buyer will pay WBD billions of dollars if the deal is not completed.
That’s critical because the biggest X factor is regulatory approval. The Trump administration will review any transaction between Netflix and WBD, and some analysts expect a political and legal battle to ensue.
We’re about to see how much Netflix wants to kiss the ring and what lines they’ll cross for Trump.
Larry Ellison also wants Warner Discovery. He’s kissed the ring so much that Trump has to wash the slobber off.
So we’ll see. Larry Ellison is the worst option here, even worse than media consolidation and price hikes, because Ellison wants to be the new Rupert Murdoch.
Yeah, I’m already done with Trek under the Ellison name.
I’ve cut off all these services already though, as an F U to the US threatening to annex my country, and virtually no Americans standing up against that.
Canadian or New Zealander?
Canada, I wasn’t aware he threatened NZ too.
This means the would-be buyer will pay WBD billions of dollars if the deal is not completed.
There was a super interesting Money Stuff (Pay Now, Merge Later) recently about this kind of acquisition structure that allows the seller to keep the money even if the deal gets blown up by antitrust. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Fuck this and fuck Zaslav
Would you rather Larry Ellison own it? Because that was the front runner for the longest time.
As bad as this reality is, my first thought is at least it isn’t going to Larry Ellison and Paramount. Coming from Zaslov, this seems like about the same level of terrible.
I think it’s actually worse.
I don’t see how this doesn’t lead to the removal of the HBO brand from the marketplace, and the transfer of all IP, to Netflix’s algorithm driven slop machine.
Both were shitty options, this is all speculation, but something tells me that at least HBO would have survived a Comcast or Paramount acquisition, and not been converted into whatever the hell you want to call Netflix’s category of entertainment.
I only hope is that this is killed by regulators, and somehow Paramount and Comcast aren’t able to put together new bids.
But, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.
My feeling is, it’s worse if we are one step closer to effective state-controlled media, but yes, all valid points
Oh man, all that content I dont care about that will be merged with all that content I dont care about.
It’s sad when this is probably the best outcome if it goes through.
Best outcome would be after the deal is final people stop using Netflix.
Not enough people give a shit for that to ever happen. Hell, my wife (as much as I love her) doesn’t care. I’ve explained and shown her how much Netflix sucks but her desire to watch crappy Korean dubs without thinking too hard about how to do so takes precedence. Never mind my mother who is too old and stubborn to ever change.
But in the very least the subscription fees aren’t coming out of my account, and that’s really all I can do.
*Sad Larry Ellison noises*
I personally wanted Comcast to get it, only for the IP rights to be useful for their theme park division.
How in the ever living fuck does Netflix have the money to buy Warner Brothers? If anything you would think it would be the other way around.
Reminds me of the time AOL bought Time-Warner…
Stop letting companies consolidate.
And the American media industry becomes a little bit weaker.
Yeah, awesome! Super cool. Now Netflix will have more of my favourite content. Surely, they won’t send it in a 720 slideshow then raise the prices by 1.5x because they have a greater monopoly, right? Right? Animaniacs!
Well shit. There goes my hopes of HBO eventually getting the rights to The Witcher and doing it right.
There goes my hope of hbo ever doing anything good anymore.
So what happens to DC Comics?
It becomes the sister company to… Millarworld
The best way to download movies and shows is to get a VPN, I use airvpn. Install qbittorrent, enable the search function in settings. Update the search torrents, just click the update button. You can download just about anything. My Internet is very slow, especially for uploads but I wait for the share ratio to reach 3 before removing the torrent . This makes sure everybody gets a chance to download. I use alternative down&upload rates in the settings.
I use jelly fin to stream to all of my devices including TVs and tablets. We don’t need Netflix
So here is an idea:
Ban companies from buying other companies.
Period
It always ends well for a very select few, it never ends well for the consumers
That’s an interesting thought. Are mergers usually bad overall? Would it be better for the assets and workers to just be lost? I do think monopolies are bad simply because of the domination of control and the loss of competition, but if X and Y are two of many companies and Y is failing, why is it bad for X to save some of the parts of Y to incorporate it into their own? Maybe there should be limitations and regulations on how much can be done and to what?
I don’t even know the right questions to ask, I just thought the idea was interesting in its absoluteness, and wondered if it might be too simple to say no merging or buying at all.
There should at minimum be a requirement for one company to prove it is failing, and for the other company to have to argue how the merger is a net benefit for competition in front of a judge
