8 ms·

By the way, I'm getting increasingly worried about the sheer dominance that Disney is increasingly having in the children entertainment business. Looks like the

By the way, I'm getting increasingly worried about the sheer dominance that Disney is increasingly having in the children entertainment business. Looks like they're aiming at owning all the relevant franchises in that field...

fwsgonzo 8y ago
I feel like its a failure of government, and it's happening pretty much everywhere. https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3n_GbJVCIuI/UnUmZ-3ntzI/AAAAAAAAX04/WShRP19HwEc/s1600/10+Mega-Corporations.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3n_GbJVCIuI/UnUmZ-3ntzI/AAAAAAAAX... There are charts like this for banks and anything else you can imagine, so its not "just" those companies.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  Honest question: Are there some convincing arguments for why this isn’t also a failure of free-market capitalism? It appears to me that without government regulation (the irony!) most if not all free markets end up as oligopolies sooner or later. Indeed, isn’t that exactly how we got antitrust legislation in the first place?
  - white-flame 8y ago
    "Free" doesn't mean unregulated free-for-all, it specifically means that people are free to enter the market as buyers or sellers, and free to choose what and when to exchange, at what price. The government does not regulate who is allowed in the market, nor the prices; but rather would get involved by protecting those freedoms to engage & price. Monopolies work against a free market, as do barriers to entry. Businesses make more money if the market is not free, i.e. if others in the market are not free to choose competitors' products or to become a competitor themselves. The "invisible hand" is about reflecting pricing movement of free exchange, not enforcing the freedoms. If a society wants a free market, they need to set up rules that promote market freedom as a societal goal, which would (ideally) end up working against individual profit maximization (compared to a usurpable market) but for greater overall robustness and correction.
  - hrktb 8y ago
    > free-market On the Disney topic their dominance doesn’t come from free-market but IP holding though. It’s a worse of both world situation where they fought hard to carve a protected niche for themselves.
  - rdlecler1 8y ago
    Often the kind of “free-market capitalism” that leads to oligopolies benefit from regulatory protections and hurdles. Take away patents, financial regulations, and regulations that only large companies can afford which protect large incumbents and those oligopolies go away.
    - zdkl 8y ago
      I'm reading this as "There are no oligopolies in the Wild (deregulated) West", and that doesn't feel intuitively true.
      - rdlecler1 8y ago
        That is a misreading. I said often, not always.
  - mseebach 8y ago
    You have to start one step before this: Are there convincing arguments that this is a failure at all? Children's entertainment isn't an exclusionary arena, nothing about the number of options Disney provides prevents someone else from putting out option N+1. It was true on cable TV, and it's infinitely more true in the streaming world of today. In such a market, Disney's dominance need not mean anything more than being really good at servicing this market. Copyright is really an orthogonal concern here. Yes, it certainly endows Disney with some rents that they shouldn't have, but their dominance is based on a continuous supply of new content, not derivatives of Mickey Mouse.
    - jerf 8y ago
      In all seriousness, Disney does not own my children's childhoods. I don't systematically exclude them, but it's certainly a minority in my household. It's not even something I've tried that hard to do.
      - brianwawok 8y ago
        We do not allow any clothes or items with a character in our house. So no shirts, no undies, no dolls, no toys. Most toys are more neutral, stuff like meliss & doug wood blocks. Not surprisingly, non-character stuff tends to be way better quality. We do have a few items from gifts over the years. Our 2 year old calls a gifted Minnie Mouse doll "Elmo". Makes me proud.
  - VHRanger 8y ago
    The answer is economies of scale. Banks, for instance, have significant economies of scale. Bigger banks can lend for lower rates and offer better services overall. Ironically bigger banks are also safer [1]. So economists have to weigh the disadvantages of oligopolies against the advantage of efficient production. For instance you wouldn't want several electric grids competing against each other. On the other hand oligopolies can have powerful lobbies distorting the political process. It's a complex balancing act overall. If you're interested, this is a field of economics called "industrial organization". 1. Canada, for instance, has only 6 banks, none of which failed in 2008. The problem with banks is their being over-leveraged (that is taking excessive risks) and inter-connectedness, as well as human shortsightedness and managerial incentives encouraging excessive risk taking. The problem with large banks is generally their political power.
whywhywhywhy 8y ago
Other franchises exist than Marvel and Star Wars, vote with you wallet rather than just wishing that Disney didn't own it.
- maeln 8y ago
  You can't vote with a wallet. And choosing who you're giving your money to is ultimately pointless in a system where a few huge company can buy the little guy / franchise / studio / ... that you supported. Consolidation of super-conglomerate is a real issue and one that most government in the world fail to tackle.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > You can't vote with a wallet. And choosing who you're giving your money to is ultimately pointless in a system where a few huge company can buy the little guy / franchise / studio / ... that you supported. Emphasis on "support_ed_". As soon as they are bought out, stop supporting them.
    - giantsloth 8y ago
      If you supported them, you’re still in love with the franchise and the characters, and now they have a giant marketing/pr push behind them which will grow the brand even more. The idea that you can just “opt out” like some emotionless automaton is beyond stupid. All the reasons you fell in love with the franchise will still be available to new fans, plus a massive cultural push to consume more of it. This idea that we are all rational consumers who can just turn on and off our love for things and therefore have any actual effect on the market is both extremely stupid and extremely toxic.
      - wolfgke 8y ago
        > If you supported them, you’re still in love with the franchise and the characters At this point we probably differ: As soon as such a buyout happens, I lose my love. > plus a massive cultural push to consume more of it. I have a tendency to be rather immune with respect to such cultural pushes. I often tell people to become and how to become resistant in this respect, too.
kartan 8y ago
> that Disney is increasingly having in the children entertainment business. This is one of the evils of Copyright as it actually exists. Companies own culture. They own every story and character you grew up until after the day you will be dead. Add to that the lax anti-monopoly rules and you end with empires like Disney. Facebook or Disney are cultural trends that are impossible to ignore for an individual that wants to be a normal part of society. I am happy that Alice in Wonderland, Jack and the Beanstalk, Roman culture, Egyptian culture, ... are free to use.
- nailer 8y ago
  Alice in Wonderland is free to use because the copyright has expired. During the time it existed, it allowed Lewis Carrol to pay his rent (and various other things useful in producing creative works). There's an issue, but it may be with copyright lifetimes rather than copyright itself.
  - FreeFull 8y ago
    There definitely is a problem with how long copyright lasts, and Disney is directly responsible for strongly lobbying to make it last longer.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > Disney is directly responsible for strongly lobbying to make it last longer. And the hacker scene is directly respondible for not developing darknet software with which one can circumvent these copyright restrictions.
      - vetinari 8y ago
        Just like with DRM, technology is not a solution to a social problem. Having a darknet software that circumvents copyright restrictions won't prevent a squad of guys with guns appearing at your doorstep and taking you to a place, where you will spend several years. To prevent that, you need another solution and the answer is not technology or software.
thisisit 8y ago
That is the nature of business cycle. Everyone starts of doing their own thing. Then at a point in time businesses start to run out of markets to keep growing. They need to find new places to generate alpha. This mostly coincides with the rise of easy credit. Some businesses are more ambitious than others. So the ambitious business takes out loans(credit) to buy other businesses at a significant cost. The idea being that consolidations will lead to synergies, save costs and market dominance. And this is what is happening right now in almost every sector. You can take any industry and you will find that there are more and more consolidations happening right now.

fwsgonzo 8y ago

I feel like its a failure of government, and it's happening pretty much everywhere. https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3n_GbJVCIuI/UnUmZ-3ntzI/AAAAAAAAX04/WShRP19HwEc/s1600/10+Mega-Corporations.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3n_GbJVCIuI/UnUmZ-3ntzI/AAAAAAAAX... There are charts like this for banks and anything else you can imagine, so its not "just" those companies.

Sharlin 8y ago
Honest question: Are there some convincing arguments for why this isn’t also a failure of free-market capitalism? It appears to me that without government regulation (the irony!) most if not all free markets end up as oligopolies sooner or later. Indeed, isn’t that exactly how we got antitrust legislation in the first place?
- white-flame 8y ago
  "Free" doesn't mean unregulated free-for-all, it specifically means that people are free to enter the market as buyers or sellers, and free to choose what and when to exchange, at what price. The government does not regulate who is allowed in the market, nor the prices; but rather would get involved by protecting those freedoms to engage & price. Monopolies work against a free market, as do barriers to entry. Businesses make more money if the market is not free, i.e. if others in the market are not free to choose competitors' products or to become a competitor themselves. The "invisible hand" is about reflecting pricing movement of free exchange, not enforcing the freedoms. If a society wants a free market, they need to set up rules that promote market freedom as a societal goal, which would (ideally) end up working against individual profit maximization (compared to a usurpable market) but for greater overall robustness and correction.
- hrktb 8y ago
  > free-market On the Disney topic their dominance doesn’t come from free-market but IP holding though. It’s a worse of both world situation where they fought hard to carve a protected niche for themselves.
- rdlecler1 8y ago
  Often the kind of “free-market capitalism” that leads to oligopolies benefit from regulatory protections and hurdles. Take away patents, financial regulations, and regulations that only large companies can afford which protect large incumbents and those oligopolies go away.
  - zdkl 8y ago
    I'm reading this as "There are no oligopolies in the Wild (deregulated) West", and that doesn't feel intuitively true.
    - rdlecler1 8y ago
      That is a misreading. I said often, not always.
- mseebach 8y ago
  You have to start one step before this: Are there convincing arguments that this is a failure at all? Children's entertainment isn't an exclusionary arena, nothing about the number of options Disney provides prevents someone else from putting out option N+1. It was true on cable TV, and it's infinitely more true in the streaming world of today. In such a market, Disney's dominance need not mean anything more than being really good at servicing this market. Copyright is really an orthogonal concern here. Yes, it certainly endows Disney with some rents that they shouldn't have, but their dominance is based on a continuous supply of new content, not derivatives of Mickey Mouse.
  - jerf 8y ago
    In all seriousness, Disney does not own my children's childhoods. I don't systematically exclude them, but it's certainly a minority in my household. It's not even something I've tried that hard to do.
    - brianwawok 8y ago
      We do not allow any clothes or items with a character in our house. So no shirts, no undies, no dolls, no toys. Most toys are more neutral, stuff like meliss & doug wood blocks. Not surprisingly, non-character stuff tends to be way better quality. We do have a few items from gifts over the years. Our 2 year old calls a gifted Minnie Mouse doll "Elmo". Makes me proud.
- VHRanger 8y ago
  The answer is economies of scale. Banks, for instance, have significant economies of scale. Bigger banks can lend for lower rates and offer better services overall. Ironically bigger banks are also safer [1]. So economists have to weigh the disadvantages of oligopolies against the advantage of efficient production. For instance you wouldn't want several electric grids competing against each other. On the other hand oligopolies can have powerful lobbies distorting the political process. It's a complex balancing act overall. If you're interested, this is a field of economics called "industrial organization". 1. Canada, for instance, has only 6 banks, none of which failed in 2008. The problem with banks is their being over-leveraged (that is taking excessive risks) and inter-connectedness, as well as human shortsightedness and managerial incentives encouraging excessive risk taking. The problem with large banks is generally their political power.

whywhywhywhy 8y ago

Other franchises exist than Marvel and Star Wars, vote with you wallet rather than just wishing that Disney didn't own it.

maeln 8y ago
You can't vote with a wallet. And choosing who you're giving your money to is ultimately pointless in a system where a few huge company can buy the little guy / franchise / studio / ... that you supported. Consolidation of super-conglomerate is a real issue and one that most government in the world fail to tackle.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > You can't vote with a wallet. And choosing who you're giving your money to is ultimately pointless in a system where a few huge company can buy the little guy / franchise / studio / ... that you supported. Emphasis on "support_ed_". As soon as they are bought out, stop supporting them.
  - giantsloth 8y ago
    If you supported them, you’re still in love with the franchise and the characters, and now they have a giant marketing/pr push behind them which will grow the brand even more. The idea that you can just “opt out” like some emotionless automaton is beyond stupid. All the reasons you fell in love with the franchise will still be available to new fans, plus a massive cultural push to consume more of it. This idea that we are all rational consumers who can just turn on and off our love for things and therefore have any actual effect on the market is both extremely stupid and extremely toxic.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > If you supported them, you’re still in love with the franchise and the characters At this point we probably differ: As soon as such a buyout happens, I lose my love. > plus a massive cultural push to consume more of it. I have a tendency to be rather immune with respect to such cultural pushes. I often tell people to become and how to become resistant in this respect, too.

kartan 8y ago

> that Disney is increasingly having in the children entertainment business. This is one of the evils of Copyright as it actually exists. Companies own culture. They own every story and character you grew up until after the day you will be dead. Add to that the lax anti-monopoly rules and you end with empires like Disney. Facebook or Disney are cultural trends that are impossible to ignore for an individual that wants to be a normal part of society. I am happy that Alice in Wonderland, Jack and the Beanstalk, Roman culture, Egyptian culture, ... are free to use.

nailer 8y ago
Alice in Wonderland is free to use because the copyright has expired. During the time it existed, it allowed Lewis Carrol to pay his rent (and various other things useful in producing creative works). There's an issue, but it may be with copyright lifetimes rather than copyright itself.
- FreeFull 8y ago
  There definitely is a problem with how long copyright lasts, and Disney is directly responsible for strongly lobbying to make it last longer.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > Disney is directly responsible for strongly lobbying to make it last longer. And the hacker scene is directly respondible for not developing darknet software with which one can circumvent these copyright restrictions.
    - vetinari 8y ago
      Just like with DRM, technology is not a solution to a social problem. Having a darknet software that circumvents copyright restrictions won't prevent a squad of guys with guns appearing at your doorstep and taking you to a place, where you will spend several years. To prevent that, you need another solution and the answer is not technology or software.

thisisit 8y ago

That is the nature of business cycle. Everyone starts of doing their own thing. Then at a point in time businesses start to run out of markets to keep growing. They need to find new places to generate alpha. This mostly coincides with the rise of easy credit. Some businesses are more ambitious than others. So the ambitious business takes out loans(credit) to buy other businesses at a significant cost. The idea being that consolidations will lead to synergies, save costs and market dominance. And this is what is happening right now in almost every sector. You can take any industry and you will find that there are more and more consolidations happening right now.