5 ms·

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

maeln 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.
      - giantsloth 9y ago
        Well aren’t we confusing good advice for the individual vs good advice for the mean. There is room for both sets of advice, but I think on average we need to look towards implementing policy that takes the whole into consideration. Not everyone has access to people or content that will motivate them to make the right individual choices. But, most everyone has access to advertising that actually promotes us making the wrong decision to make people money.
        wolfgke 9y ago
        > Not everyone has access to people or content that will motivate them to make the right individual choices. This might be true, but I see the much larger problem in the fact that many people, who do have such access, tend to ignore it and go with the mainstream. > But, most everyone has access to advertising that actually promotes us making the wrong decision to make people money. I have a strong tendency to ignore advertising that is not coherent with my values. In this sense, I believe/hope, that I am a tough nut for advertisers to crack. :-) More seriously: I do not believe that one can manipulate people into doing/buying things that they are mentally opposed to. For example: If before a Youtube video some Netflix trailer is shown, I immediatelly think: "Not interested in the slightest as long as Netflix uses DRM" etc. So having strong principles is a good vaccination against advertising - but most people actively do not want to become vaccinatinated against this kind of brainwashing.
        giantsloth 9y ago
        You are basing your analysis purely on your own personal experience and attitude towards the world which is definitionally anecdotal and extremely anti scientific. If people are not influenced by advertising and marketing why then do governments put fourth propaganda, why is advertising a multi billion dollar industry, why is it an extremely sought after undergraduate degree, why are there advertisements literally everywhere you look? The answer is because it works, and it makes people a lot of money and gives them a lot of power. We are highly influenced by the mainstream and by culture, I mean culture is what is allowing us to communicate with each other by providing us with a set of symbols (alphabet and English language). In fact we don’t know what we don’t know and therefore can never truly be objective in our view of the world, it’s always built and based off of cultural artifacts and norms. So it’s not a problem per say that people do the wrong thing at large, it’s simply a fact of life, people tend go with the flow. That means people who don’t go with the flow need to make the flow flow better. Or else you are suggesting we leave normal people behind because they suck. Where I personally think we are as individuals defined by how we help people that are weaker than ourselves.
krapp 9y ago
On the one hand, I hate the fact that Disney owns so many franchises. On the other hand, I trust them to make better Star Wars content than Lucas, and I enjoy the Marvel movies. They may be evil incarnate but they do know how to tell (and sell) a good story.
- vetinari 9y ago
  > On the other hand, I trust them to make better Star Wars content than Lucas, Really? I mean, have you seen the last one? I wish I didn't...
  - krapp 9y ago
    Did you see the prequels? Reasonable people can disagree, but I'll take subjectively bad over objectively bad any day. And I happen to be a bit of a fan of deconstructionist narratives, anyway.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Reasonable people can disagree, but I'll take subjectively bad over objectively bad any day. Good and bad are inherently subjective. There are objective features of things, but ascribing good or bad to them is a subjective association.
      - krapp 9y ago
        That's fair. My opinion is the prequels are bad for technical reasons. I think they're just badly written and acted, the plot is incoherent and contrived, the dialogue is terrible, Anakin and Padme's romance is awkward and his fall to the dark side is unconvincing. And as far as the new movies go, I think they (and The Force Awakens definitely) suffer (as did the prequels) from the need to shoehorn in references to OT characters just for the sake of pandering to fan nostalgia, but they still seem like competently structured movies. Between the two, I think the post Disney movies are better because they better tell the stories they intend to.
- 9y ago
lozenge 9y ago
When has voting with your wallet ever actually changed something?
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  What are the biggest telecommunications companies in America now? In 1950? The AT&T name survives but the company using it now bought the original company. The American automobile market looks radically different now than it did in 1950 too. The newspaper classified ads economy has mostly been eaten by internet advertising. Creative destruction is part and parcel of capitalism.
  - lozenge 9y ago
    None is that is due to ethical consumerism (the idea you can vote with your wallet on a principle and it will actually make a difference). As far as I know, the last major time ethical consumerism made a difference was against South African apartheid. Which is a cause 10,000x more important than the hegemony of Disney. Smaller issues just don't get the traction.

maeln 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.
    - giantsloth 9y ago
      Well aren’t we confusing good advice for the individual vs good advice for the mean. There is room for both sets of advice, but I think on average we need to look towards implementing policy that takes the whole into consideration. Not everyone has access to people or content that will motivate them to make the right individual choices. But, most everyone has access to advertising that actually promotes us making the wrong decision to make people money.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > Not everyone has access to people or content that will motivate them to make the right individual choices. This might be true, but I see the much larger problem in the fact that many people, who do have such access, tend to ignore it and go with the mainstream. > But, most everyone has access to advertising that actually promotes us making the wrong decision to make people money. I have a strong tendency to ignore advertising that is not coherent with my values. In this sense, I believe/hope, that I am a tough nut for advertisers to crack. :-) More seriously: I do not believe that one can manipulate people into doing/buying things that they are mentally opposed to. For example: If before a Youtube video some Netflix trailer is shown, I immediatelly think: "Not interested in the slightest as long as Netflix uses DRM" etc. So having strong principles is a good vaccination against advertising - but most people actively do not want to become vaccinatinated against this kind of brainwashing.
        giantsloth 9y ago
        You are basing your analysis purely on your own personal experience and attitude towards the world which is definitionally anecdotal and extremely anti scientific. If people are not influenced by advertising and marketing why then do governments put fourth propaganda, why is advertising a multi billion dollar industry, why is it an extremely sought after undergraduate degree, why are there advertisements literally everywhere you look? The answer is because it works, and it makes people a lot of money and gives them a lot of power. We are highly influenced by the mainstream and by culture, I mean culture is what is allowing us to communicate with each other by providing us with a set of symbols (alphabet and English language). In fact we don’t know what we don’t know and therefore can never truly be objective in our view of the world, it’s always built and based off of cultural artifacts and norms. So it’s not a problem per say that people do the wrong thing at large, it’s simply a fact of life, people tend go with the flow. That means people who don’t go with the flow need to make the flow flow better. Or else you are suggesting we leave normal people behind because they suck. Where I personally think we are as individuals defined by how we help people that are weaker than ourselves.

krapp 9y ago

On the one hand, I hate the fact that Disney owns so many franchises. On the other hand, I trust them to make better Star Wars content than Lucas, and I enjoy the Marvel movies. They may be evil incarnate but they do know how to tell (and sell) a good story.

vetinari 9y ago
> On the other hand, I trust them to make better Star Wars content than Lucas, Really? I mean, have you seen the last one? I wish I didn't...
- krapp 9y ago
  Did you see the prequels? Reasonable people can disagree, but I'll take subjectively bad over objectively bad any day. And I happen to be a bit of a fan of deconstructionist narratives, anyway.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Reasonable people can disagree, but I'll take subjectively bad over objectively bad any day. Good and bad are inherently subjective. There are objective features of things, but ascribing good or bad to them is a subjective association.
    - krapp 9y ago
      That's fair. My opinion is the prequels are bad for technical reasons. I think they're just badly written and acted, the plot is incoherent and contrived, the dialogue is terrible, Anakin and Padme's romance is awkward and his fall to the dark side is unconvincing. And as far as the new movies go, I think they (and The Force Awakens definitely) suffer (as did the prequels) from the need to shoehorn in references to OT characters just for the sake of pandering to fan nostalgia, but they still seem like competently structured movies. Between the two, I think the post Disney movies are better because they better tell the stories they intend to.
9y ago

lozenge 9y ago

When has voting with your wallet ever actually changed something?

barry-cotter 9y ago
What are the biggest telecommunications companies in America now? In 1950? The AT&T name survives but the company using it now bought the original company. The American automobile market looks radically different now than it did in 1950 too. The newspaper classified ads economy has mostly been eaten by internet advertising. Creative destruction is part and parcel of capitalism.
- lozenge 9y ago
  None is that is due to ethical consumerism (the idea you can vote with your wallet on a principle and it will actually make a difference). As far as I know, the last major time ethical consumerism made a difference was against South African apartheid. Which is a cause 10,000x more important than the hegemony of Disney. Smaller issues just don't get the traction.