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Netflix Has 175 Days Left to Pull Off a Miracle

63 points by jorkro 7y ago

indigodaddy 7y ago
Hard to argue with any of the points offered in the article, but I wouldn't count Netflix out just yet. I agree it will be a long uphill battle, that may have to end with a hugely profitable Fortune 100 taking on Netflix's debt load.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  If they fail, they could always open a movie studio. I mean Netflix originals are some of the best shows and movies around... Dead like me, Stranger Things, Haunting of hill House, The OA, Sex Ed, etc just to name a few...
  - indigodaddy 7y ago
    I loved the end to S2 of The OA. Marling/Batmangli are may be the most creative and innovative writing duo in TV today. Amazingly thought-provoking stuff.
duxup 7y ago
Is Disney likely to have much beyond what Disney directly own on it's service?
- nhumrich 7y ago
  Even if not, disney owns a lot of content.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Everything that Disney owns https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/chart-every-company-that-disney-owns-172130.html https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/chart-every-company-that-...
- yroc92 7y ago
  They own fox now as well.
agent00f 7y ago
These are $10/month subs which are akin to channel packages. Just because some will also sub to the Disney chan package doesn't mean they'll drop Netflix. Would surprise no one if the author were shorting Netflix.
- AznHisoka 7y ago
  It also doesnt mean nobody will drop Netflix. If you are paying money to Netflix and you are consistently not finding the content you expect to watch, you are going to question the value of your subscription. Some will cancel if they find the value too low.
  - wolco 7y ago
    Does Disney change the balance for you? Not at all, you either find something or not.
    - AznHisoka 7y ago
      It does for me. I often use Netflix to find something for my kids to watch.
- marktangotango 7y ago
  Maybe not shorting Netflix, but a long bet on Disney?
high_derivative 7y ago
This article has incredible annoying spacing (one sentence per paragraph). Is this meant to read like an unrolled Twitter thread? Content wise: I recently cancelled my Netflix again because despite a flood of new shows, all feel incredibly generic and formulaic. I like shows across genres, from teenage romance to sitcom to thriller, and I am looking forward to watching e.g. Narcos new season when it hits, there are also great one-offs like Maniac. I just don't believe in the strategy of flooding their platform with their own content at this volume. Or rather, the type of content. If I remember correctly, plots and artistic decisions are made by committee, and it just shows very hard how plots are made to be subtly educational, not offend, just a lowest common denominator of what the data says. Not sure it works. After finding myself browsing through too many evenings in a row, I always cancel until something I know I want returns for a new season, then resubscribe for a month.
- AznHisoka 7y ago
  Same here. I find myself going from series to series trying to find something that captivates me, and nothing sticks. I thought I was goingd to watch more Netflix now that Thrones is over but it is the opposite. I expect more and Netflix isnt delivering so I will cancel my subscription soo . A 5-episode series of Black Mirror every year isnt going to cut it. I honestly dont know why they dont release an episode a week. Its pure laziness on their part, imo. Make the consumers happy. stop pushing out random junk that doesn’t stick and double down on what works.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    They couldn't maintain quality when they went to 5 episodes a year, which is why they've gone back down to 3 episodes.
- oplav 7y ago
  After finding myself browsing through too many evenings in a row, I always cancel until something I know I want returns for a new season, then resubscribe for a month. I find myself doing this with my Hulu subscription. They have a built-in hold function that pauses your account for up to 12 weeks. Since I typically watch shows in bulk (or binge), only having the subscription active one out of every four months works well. The next step I'd like to take would be to only have a single streaming service active each month.
tilt_error 7y ago
Eehh - who clings to a single provider? In my family we jump around among iTunes, HBO Nordic, Viaplay and Netflix. I assume we will add Disney+ as well. Where exactly is the disruption?
- mjrow 7y ago
  Someone who doesn't want to pay 6 subscriptions, I guess.
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    if Netflix were smart they'd try to push a network package deal -- where you can signup for disney, hbo, amazon, through netflix and they take $2 or something off each subscription as incentive, users get single billing for all streaming, you'd pay the normal price or maybe get $5 off if you buy all networks for like $50 or $60. disney, hbo, amazon still get their $$ but Netflix makes some off the top, could be all the providers network and create the same deal for each other, but whoever sells & bills the packaged deal gets the extra $2-3 kickbacks.
    - javagram 7y ago
      I doubt this has anything to do with Netflix being "smart". If anything it looks like Disney may be trying to execute this exact strategy in the future. Look at how they refused to participate in UltraViolet and eventually got most of the other major movie companies to quit supporting UV and join the Disney-owned Movies Anywhere service instead. I doubt they would play ball with such an attempt by Netflix.
    - cududa 7y ago
      That’s literally what Apple TV’s strategy is
  - matwood 7y ago
    Or people become better at bouncing around with their subscription dollars. One of benefits of moving to streaming is the ease to stop and start the subscription.
mgamache 7y ago
This argues that it's Netflix vs Disney and it's a zero-sum game. If you lump all TV dollars together it's Disney vs Netflix vs CBS vs HBO vs Cable etc... It's not so clear what the consumer will do. The wild card is still live sports. It's the one area that cable still has a strangle hold. Once sports is fully streaming what can cable offer?
- linkregister 7y ago
  Live sports on ESPN are available on Sling TV and YouTube TV in the United States.
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    Pretty sure disney also owns ESPN.
  - mgamache 7y ago
    Some are, but a lot of regional games are blacked out and not available on Sling. I tried to switch the last couple of years and every weekend in the fall (College Football) my game was on cable and not on Sling.
berbec 7y ago
Disney bought the rest of Hulu. They currently have full control and will have 100% ownership in a few years. We're getting to the point where you don't spend 10 minutes flipping channels; you spend 10 minutes checking different streaming apps. And the monthly spend is approaching parity. I spend $75 on streaming services a month.
- devoply 7y ago
  Yeah Netflix isn't going anywhere, Disney is just going to justify its chunk of your entertainment spending. I am okay with $50 spend for a large catalog of stuff to watch with no commercials, that enough of the improvement. Cable was and continues to be a scam which charges a lot of money and delivers very little value. So good riddance to that garbage.
- rayiner 7y ago
  That’s not really a fair comparison, though. $75 per month didn’t buy you access to tons of on-demand movies back in the day.
  - chaostheory 7y ago
    It’s not a fair comparison. Let’s not forget - no commercials
    - willio58 7y ago
      Not necessarily. Low tiers of Hulu still have commercials.
      - chaostheory 7y ago
        Yes I pay $.99 / month for it. The normal plan with ads is 6.99 and 10.99 without ads. Currently no other service has traditional ads Honestly I don’t see how anyone is paying $75 / month for streaming services unless they are paying for sports plans, which most people don’t subscribe to. Most people subscribe to only 2-3 streaming services which probably includes amazon prime. That comes to roughly $35/month
jayalpha 7y ago
Time to buy piratebay.org call options. Sometimes it is not a zero sum game. People won't sign up for Netflix. And Hulu. And Disney. And HBO. And Youtube. And... But netflix going belly up would be a shame. I need the next seasons of "alternated carbon"!
- naner 7y ago
  Yep, also most of us don't need access to everything simultaneously. I rotate subscriptions and typically only have one streaming service active at a time.
- titanomachy 7y ago
  If you cared about the environment you would watch alternative carbon.
- cududa 7y ago
  What you just described, minus YouTube is $40 a month. That’s really not that difficult for a lot of people, compared to how much cable use to cost, plus add ons. I already pay for Hulu, Netflix, and HBO, and I don’t mind paying another $7 for Disney+ Content isn’t free, and makers deserve to get paid. Edit with sourcing: 64% of households making less than $15k have cable. https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2001/appliances/appliances.php https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2001/applia... The lowest cable packages across the country are $22.57 https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/05/cut-your-cable-costs-with-a-basic-cable-tv-package/index.htm https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/05/cut-your-ca... Signing up for Hulu and Disney+ will give you all the content you’re looking for in the same price envelope sub $15k households are already willing to pay.
rayiner 7y ago
I don’t understand why so many people think this is a bad thing. Content distribution has become a commodity, thanks to AWS and the like. The codecs and whatnot are all standardized. And it turns out that consumers don’t really care about recommendation systems and similar accouterments. So the competition has shifted to the thing that people care about: content. When the market is competing over the thing people care about, that’s a good thing. This is the healthiest the television industry has ever been. There are no “big 4 networks” controlling distribution. There’s no monopolies—if you want to launch a competitor, start a studio, pay Amazon a bunch of money, and boom. Disney, Netflix, CBS, etc., have just become umbrella organizations for studios producing content. They can compete directly with each other, and consumers and pick and choose what they want to spend their dollars on.
- mikeash 7y ago
  It’s annoying as a user to juggle subscriptions. If I want to watch something, I have to figure out where it’s available, sign up if I don’t currently have a subscription, worry about forgetting services and having a bunch of monthly payments I’m not using. End result: I watch a lot of YouTube and pretty much gave up on the rest. Contrast with music, where I have a single subscription and get access to everything I want without having to think about it. The question of what I want to listen to is separate from the question of what service I want to use. I can pick a service based on price and features instead of juggling a bunch of different ones.
  - RussianCow 7y ago
    On the other hand, it's better than the alternative with cable providers where your only choices are the cheap, basic package with only 12 channels, or the really expensive package with >100 channels, of which you'll only ever watch a couple. Juggling multiple subscriptions is annoying, yes, but at least you can pick and choose what content you want to pay for. Personally, Netflix has more than enough content for me to watch, so that's the only video subscription service I still pay for.
    - beatgammit 7y ago
Giorgi 7y ago
So forbes now has a freaking video in the corner that I can't close? WTF?
- zeta0134 7y ago
  I dislike side rails, so I blocked it, and this appears to block the video that follows you around the article too. Here's the uBlock filter I use, which would probably work on other ad blockers: ! 5/26/2019 https://www.forbes.com www.forbes.com##.right-rail I especially love how the video waits for you to start scrolling. I've noticed that as a vulnerability in autoplaying media, since the scroll counts as a user action and the browser will allow the site to "play" the media at that point. Some sites use it to "auto"-play videos with sound, working around the user's preferences. Don't any of these sites realize how hostile this behavior is?
- schmookeeg 7y ago
  It's getting worse, everywhere. Autoplay is a scourge I can't seem to get out of my life. For Chrome at least, I find this handy https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/html-content-blocker/nobnkgabkebhhlgfddbemmefjnjnahoe?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/html-content-block... I run the media blocker nearly 100% of the time and only turn it off on the rare occasion when I want to watch a video.
paulcole 7y ago
> For example, about 20 million people tuned in to watch the first episode of the latest season of hit show Game of Thrones. > It was one of the most-watched non-sporting events in TV history. This is not even close to true. Nearly 17 million people watched the Murder She Wrote finale in 1996. In the 1970s, each year, the highest rated episodes of All In The Family were consistently over 20 million. Seinfeld had 35 million once. 60 minutes has gone over 20 million many times. Grace Under Fire, a mediocre sitcom most people here have never heard of, averaged about 20 million viewers for a full season in the mid 1990s. I love when TV writers act like TV didn’t exist before The Sopranos. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televis...
- yasth 7y ago
  Because the numbers are kind of crap lately. People don't realize just how the average episode of Friends beat 20 million for every one of 10 seasons [1]. The audience is fragmented like never before. A small correction though, All in the Family was on average over 20 million households, and before every house had seven tvs that was significantly more viewers. http://newmusicandmore.tripod.com/friendsratings.html http://newmusicandmore.tripod.com/friendsratings.html
  - paulcole 7y ago
    Households over 20 million also equals viewers over 20 million.
jaimebuelta 7y ago
A little bit apocalyptic... Netflix could loose half of their subscribers, take a massive hit, and still survive... guess that the press love the “X company is doomed!” approach... Disney entering the streaming area is pretty big, but they still have solid roots in cinema areas. They can’t premiere the next Star Wars movie in streaming without cannibalising it’s ticket sales. Maybe they’ll obliterate other companies, maybe they’ll be successful alongside other players, or maybe it will be a bad move. We don’t know yet. It looks like an interesting offering right now, and probably will be successful, but I don’t get why they need to be so bombastic in their analysis...
ricardobeat 7y ago
> The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+ This typo might end up being the best prediction here. The winner in all this is going to be Apple TV, aka cable-all-over-again.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
zanybear 7y ago
There is also the option of Amazon buying Netflix or better yet Apple. So far I find Netflix content of higher quality than Disney. There is also a growing segment of the population that watches only YouTube. I find that is the main competition for Netflix.
mrep 7y ago
> Disney’s ownership of iconic franchises like Star Wars gives it something no money can buy. Lol, considering Disney themselves not only bought the iconic franchise star wars, but they also bought marvel and even Pixar. If Disney is good at anything, it's identifying under-capitalized brands, buying them and then milking them for all they worth.
Nelson69 7y ago
Where did Disney get all this delivery cred? They do seem to be taking their time and they've been gobbling things up and certainly have the content. Aren't they just an old media company though? I remember when Disney Channel was a pay channel with relatively bunk content; like it had some original stuff and then like ancient re-runs for the Mickey Mouse club and once fairly rarely they'd play a classic Disney movie. Tons of commercials too and they had like special "early access" adverts for the big next movie and toys and things like that. Maybe it's a different company now but I'll ask, with all their content: the disney stuff, star wars, marvel, fox, etc.. If they put it all on Disney+ at $7 a month, are they not leaving money on the table? I can't imagine there won't be up-selling or limited availability of certain media properties or something. The author is right, if it's all there at $7 and the app is great and they are bold and aggressive, then I would think Prime and Netflix, etc. will be in a bit of trouble. On the other hand, if Disney acts like they always have then I expect there to be like 10% good stuff, an advertising machine for whatever movie is next in the pipe and then just some bunk filler content.
- runamok 7y ago
  True. The idea that Disney would allow this is doubtful to me: > Disney puts a blockbuster like Avengers Endgame on its platform the same day it opens in theaters. Limiting distribution, sure... Though again they would be losing a lot of money to DVD/Bluray sales, etc. so again I doubt it: > After a few weeks it’s no longer in theaters. You can’t buy it. You can’t rent it. The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+.
WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
Disney has a following and Neflix has a following so that says to me that customers will pick one or the other or both there is room for both. The idea that one has to beat the other is good for completion but does not mean that one has to go out of business. I see it as a big plus since now they both have to compete for customers. Yeah for us.
wolco 7y ago
This article doesn't make any sense. If Disney is offering a service for a cheap 6.99 why do people stop using netflix? Disney has content for kids and superhero fans. This is not a netflix replacement but replacing whatever was in place before. Stock prices are popularity contests and Netflix may take a hit but Disney is undercutting the high prices on Disney/Marvel content it charges now and longterm it might be better if they merged with a studio offering more adult material. "Netflix changed how we watch TV, but it didn’t really change what we watch…" It changed what I watched. Netflix doesn't even offer most network shows in my country so I stopped watching a lot of those shows.
coldtea 7y ago
>Netflix changed how we watch TV, but it didn’t really change what we watch… Yeah, so? Who said we need/want/will change what we watch? >The problem is that no matter how much Netflix spends, it has no chance to catch up with its biggest rival… Disney? Who the fuck cares for Disney? 8 year olds or parents buying a subscription for them? >Disney owns Marvel, Pixar Animations, Star Wars, ESPN, National Geographic, Modern Family, and The Simpsons. Not to mention all the classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. So, mostly irrelevant stuff. ESPN has been going down for a decade or so, Mickey wont be making any revivals, and most people don't get Netflix to watch Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, or National Geographic.
- reallydude 7y ago
  > Mickey wont be making any revivals, and most people don't get Netflix to watch Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, or National Geographic. These articles act like I want to watch the same movies 100 times, so of course I'll drop a service with a dedication to creating new content. It makes no sense, but it does sound a lot like marketing hype by an affiliate.
tzs 7y ago
Where do Disney's TV channels fit into this? Besides the obvious Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior, they also own the FX channels and Freeform. Their movies currently eventually make it to those, and that is mostly where I've watched them. Sure, they take some time to get there. They are currently just up to 2016, with Moana, Finding Dory, Rogue One, and Doctor Strange being where they are up to in Disney animation, Pixar animation, Star Wars, and Marvel, respectively. But none of their franchises are ones that I need to keep current with anymore [1], so I don't mind. [1] I did subscribe to Netflix for a month a few months ago specifically to get up to date on Marvel, so I could see Endgame in theaters. That was a special case because I decided it would be too hard to avoid major spoilers in the two or three years it would take to show up on cable.
ralphc 7y ago
The author says that $6.99 a month is a no-brainer for his 12 year old daughter, but what about adults? NetFlix has R-rated content that I doubt Disney would produce or carry, and there will always be a market for that.
Grue3 7y ago
Disney values their family friendly image too much. Which is why they'll only ever produce safe boring stuff that doesn't take any risks. So you get these kid-friendly superhero and Star Wars movies, which are popular right now, but surely at some point an adult audience would want more? Especially when they're watching it in the privacy of their own room. Looking at Netflix originals (even if they're not very good), I can't see Disney making something like Narcos, 13 reasons why, Devilman, Love Death & Robots, hell even something like Sabrina (Satanic imagery) or She-Ra (gay stuff). Seriously, what shows in [1] excluding "Children and family" section can you see being streamed on Disney+? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...
davvolun 7y ago
I should have known better than to click on a click-bait article like this. Even if Disney+ enters the market and immediately dominates, that doesn't mean Netflix is dead. They'll have to (continue to) adjust and maybe their stock won't be competing with Amazon, but that's far from dead. Netflix managed to turn a dvd-rental-by-mail service into the first majorly successful streaming service, and they are using that to pivot into creating competitive original content. Netflix may survive, it may not, but this article was trash.
danwat1234 7y ago
"After a few weeks it’s no longer in theaters. You can’t buy it. You can’t rent it. The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+. " WRONG. Any movie or TV show is on bittorrent for free. It's simply not the case that the only way to watch it in that situation is thru subscribing to a streaming service.

63 points by jorkro 7y ago

Hard to argue with any of the points offered in the article, but I wouldn't count Netflix out just yet. I agree it will be a long uphill battle, that may have to end with a hugely profitable Fortune 100 taking on Netflix's debt load.

gremlinsinc 7y ago
If they fail, they could always open a movie studio. I mean Netflix originals are some of the best shows and movies around... Dead like me, Stranger Things, Haunting of hill House, The OA, Sex Ed, etc just to name a few...
- indigodaddy 7y ago
  I loved the end to S2 of The OA. Marling/Batmangli are may be the most creative and innovative writing duo in TV today. Amazingly thought-provoking stuff.

duxup 7y ago

Is Disney likely to have much beyond what Disney directly own on it's service?

nhumrich 7y ago
Even if not, disney owns a lot of content.
scarface74 7y ago
Everything that Disney owns https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/chart-every-company-that-disney-owns-172130.html https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/chart-every-company-that-...
yroc92 7y ago
They own fox now as well.

agent00f 7y ago

These are $10/month subs which are akin to channel packages. Just because some will also sub to the Disney chan package doesn't mean they'll drop Netflix. Would surprise no one if the author were shorting Netflix.

AznHisoka 7y ago
It also doesnt mean nobody will drop Netflix. If you are paying money to Netflix and you are consistently not finding the content you expect to watch, you are going to question the value of your subscription. Some will cancel if they find the value too low.
- wolco 7y ago
  Does Disney change the balance for you? Not at all, you either find something or not.
  - AznHisoka 7y ago
    It does for me. I often use Netflix to find something for my kids to watch.
marktangotango 7y ago
Maybe not shorting Netflix, but a long bet on Disney?

high_derivative 7y ago

This article has incredible annoying spacing (one sentence per paragraph). Is this meant to read like an unrolled Twitter thread? Content wise: I recently cancelled my Netflix again because despite a flood of new shows, all feel incredibly generic and formulaic. I like shows across genres, from teenage romance to sitcom to thriller, and I am looking forward to watching e.g. Narcos new season when it hits, there are also great one-offs like Maniac. I just don't believe in the strategy of flooding their platform with their own content at this volume. Or rather, the type of content. If I remember correctly, plots and artistic decisions are made by committee, and it just shows very hard how plots are made to be subtly educational, not offend, just a lowest common denominator of what the data says. Not sure it works. After finding myself browsing through too many evenings in a row, I always cancel until something I know I want returns for a new season, then resubscribe for a month.

AznHisoka 7y ago
Same here. I find myself going from series to series trying to find something that captivates me, and nothing sticks. I thought I was goingd to watch more Netflix now that Thrones is over but it is the opposite. I expect more and Netflix isnt delivering so I will cancel my subscription soo . A 5-episode series of Black Mirror every year isnt going to cut it. I honestly dont know why they dont release an episode a week. Its pure laziness on their part, imo. Make the consumers happy. stop pushing out random junk that doesn’t stick and double down on what works.
- DanBC 7y ago
  They couldn't maintain quality when they went to 5 episodes a year, which is why they've gone back down to 3 episodes.
oplav 7y ago
After finding myself browsing through too many evenings in a row, I always cancel until something I know I want returns for a new season, then resubscribe for a month. I find myself doing this with my Hulu subscription. They have a built-in hold function that pauses your account for up to 12 weeks. Since I typically watch shows in bulk (or binge), only having the subscription active one out of every four months works well. The next step I'd like to take would be to only have a single streaming service active each month.

tilt_error 7y ago

Eehh - who clings to a single provider? In my family we jump around among iTunes, HBO Nordic, Viaplay and Netflix. I assume we will add Disney+ as well. Where exactly is the disruption?

mjrow 7y ago
Someone who doesn't want to pay 6 subscriptions, I guess.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  if Netflix were smart they'd try to push a network package deal -- where you can signup for disney, hbo, amazon, through netflix and they take $2 or something off each subscription as incentive, users get single billing for all streaming, you'd pay the normal price or maybe get $5 off if you buy all networks for like $50 or $60. disney, hbo, amazon still get their $$ but Netflix makes some off the top, could be all the providers network and create the same deal for each other, but whoever sells & bills the packaged deal gets the extra $2-3 kickbacks.
  - javagram 7y ago
    I doubt this has anything to do with Netflix being "smart". If anything it looks like Disney may be trying to execute this exact strategy in the future. Look at how they refused to participate in UltraViolet and eventually got most of the other major movie companies to quit supporting UV and join the Disney-owned Movies Anywhere service instead. I doubt they would play ball with such an attempt by Netflix.
  - cududa 7y ago
    That’s literally what Apple TV’s strategy is
- matwood 7y ago
  Or people become better at bouncing around with their subscription dollars. One of benefits of moving to streaming is the ease to stop and start the subscription.

mgamache 7y ago

This argues that it's Netflix vs Disney and it's a zero-sum game. If you lump all TV dollars together it's Disney vs Netflix vs CBS vs HBO vs Cable etc... It's not so clear what the consumer will do. The wild card is still live sports. It's the one area that cable still has a strangle hold. Once sports is fully streaming what can cable offer?

linkregister 7y ago
Live sports on ESPN are available on Sling TV and YouTube TV in the United States.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  Pretty sure disney also owns ESPN.
- mgamache 7y ago
  Some are, but a lot of regional games are blacked out and not available on Sling. I tried to switch the last couple of years and every weekend in the fall (College Football) my game was on cable and not on Sling.

berbec 7y ago

Disney bought the rest of Hulu. They currently have full control and will have 100% ownership in a few years. We're getting to the point where you don't spend 10 minutes flipping channels; you spend 10 minutes checking different streaming apps. And the monthly spend is approaching parity. I spend $75 on streaming services a month.

devoply 7y ago
Yeah Netflix isn't going anywhere, Disney is just going to justify its chunk of your entertainment spending. I am okay with $50 spend for a large catalog of stuff to watch with no commercials, that enough of the improvement. Cable was and continues to be a scam which charges a lot of money and delivers very little value. So good riddance to that garbage.
rayiner 7y ago
That’s not really a fair comparison, though. $75 per month didn’t buy you access to tons of on-demand movies back in the day.
- chaostheory 7y ago
  It’s not a fair comparison. Let’s not forget - no commercials
  - willio58 7y ago
    Not necessarily. Low tiers of Hulu still have commercials.
    - chaostheory 7y ago
      Yes I pay $.99 / month for it. The normal plan with ads is 6.99 and 10.99 without ads. Currently no other service has traditional ads Honestly I don’t see how anyone is paying $75 / month for streaming services unless they are paying for sports plans, which most people don’t subscribe to. Most people subscribe to only 2-3 streaming services which probably includes amazon prime. That comes to roughly $35/month

jayalpha 7y ago

Time to buy piratebay.org call options. Sometimes it is not a zero sum game. People won't sign up for Netflix. And Hulu. And Disney. And HBO. And Youtube. And... But netflix going belly up would be a shame. I need the next seasons of "alternated carbon"!

naner 7y ago
Yep, also most of us don't need access to everything simultaneously. I rotate subscriptions and typically only have one streaming service active at a time.
titanomachy 7y ago
If you cared about the environment you would watch alternative carbon.
cududa 7y ago
What you just described, minus YouTube is $40 a month. That’s really not that difficult for a lot of people, compared to how much cable use to cost, plus add ons. I already pay for Hulu, Netflix, and HBO, and I don’t mind paying another $7 for Disney+ Content isn’t free, and makers deserve to get paid. Edit with sourcing: 64% of households making less than $15k have cable. https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2001/appliances/appliances.php https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2001/applia... The lowest cable packages across the country are $22.57 https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/05/cut-your-cable-costs-with-a-basic-cable-tv-package/index.htm https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/05/cut-your-ca... Signing up for Hulu and Disney+ will give you all the content you’re looking for in the same price envelope sub $15k households are already willing to pay.

rayiner 7y ago

I don’t understand why so many people think this is a bad thing. Content distribution has become a commodity, thanks to AWS and the like. The codecs and whatnot are all standardized. And it turns out that consumers don’t really care about recommendation systems and similar accouterments. So the competition has shifted to the thing that people care about: content. When the market is competing over the thing people care about, that’s a good thing. This is the healthiest the television industry has ever been. There are no “big 4 networks” controlling distribution. There’s no monopolies—if you want to launch a competitor, start a studio, pay Amazon a bunch of money, and boom. Disney, Netflix, CBS, etc., have just become umbrella organizations for studios producing content. They can compete directly with each other, and consumers and pick and choose what they want to spend their dollars on.

mikeash 7y ago
It’s annoying as a user to juggle subscriptions. If I want to watch something, I have to figure out where it’s available, sign up if I don’t currently have a subscription, worry about forgetting services and having a bunch of monthly payments I’m not using. End result: I watch a lot of YouTube and pretty much gave up on the rest. Contrast with music, where I have a single subscription and get access to everything I want without having to think about it. The question of what I want to listen to is separate from the question of what service I want to use. I can pick a service based on price and features instead of juggling a bunch of different ones.
- RussianCow 7y ago
  On the other hand, it's better than the alternative with cable providers where your only choices are the cheap, basic package with only 12 channels, or the really expensive package with >100 channels, of which you'll only ever watch a couple. Juggling multiple subscriptions is annoying, yes, but at least you can pick and choose what content you want to pay for. Personally, Netflix has more than enough content for me to watch, so that's the only video subscription service I still pay for.
  - beatgammit 7y ago

Giorgi 7y ago

So forbes now has a freaking video in the corner that I can't close? WTF?

zeta0134 7y ago
I dislike side rails, so I blocked it, and this appears to block the video that follows you around the article too. Here's the uBlock filter I use, which would probably work on other ad blockers: ! 5/26/2019 https://www.forbes.com www.forbes.com##.right-rail I especially love how the video waits for you to start scrolling. I've noticed that as a vulnerability in autoplaying media, since the scroll counts as a user action and the browser will allow the site to "play" the media at that point. Some sites use it to "auto"-play videos with sound, working around the user's preferences. Don't any of these sites realize how hostile this behavior is?
schmookeeg 7y ago
It's getting worse, everywhere. Autoplay is a scourge I can't seem to get out of my life. For Chrome at least, I find this handy https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/html-content-blocker/nobnkgabkebhhlgfddbemmefjnjnahoe?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/html-content-block... I run the media blocker nearly 100% of the time and only turn it off on the rare occasion when I want to watch a video.

paulcole 7y ago

> For example, about 20 million people tuned in to watch the first episode of the latest season of hit show Game of Thrones. > It was one of the most-watched non-sporting events in TV history. This is not even close to true. Nearly 17 million people watched the Murder She Wrote finale in 1996. In the 1970s, each year, the highest rated episodes of All In The Family were consistently over 20 million. Seinfeld had 35 million once. 60 minutes has gone over 20 million many times. Grace Under Fire, a mediocre sitcom most people here have never heard of, averaged about 20 million viewers for a full season in the mid 1990s. I love when TV writers act like TV didn’t exist before The Sopranos. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televis...

yasth 7y ago
Because the numbers are kind of crap lately. People don't realize just how the average episode of Friends beat 20 million for every one of 10 seasons [1]. The audience is fragmented like never before. A small correction though, All in the Family was on average over 20 million households, and before every house had seven tvs that was significantly more viewers. http://newmusicandmore.tripod.com/friendsratings.html http://newmusicandmore.tripod.com/friendsratings.html
- paulcole 7y ago
  Households over 20 million also equals viewers over 20 million.

jaimebuelta 7y ago

A little bit apocalyptic... Netflix could loose half of their subscribers, take a massive hit, and still survive... guess that the press love the “X company is doomed!” approach... Disney entering the streaming area is pretty big, but they still have solid roots in cinema areas. They can’t premiere the next Star Wars movie in streaming without cannibalising it’s ticket sales. Maybe they’ll obliterate other companies, maybe they’ll be successful alongside other players, or maybe it will be a bad move. We don’t know yet. It looks like an interesting offering right now, and probably will be successful, but I don’t get why they need to be so bombastic in their analysis...

ricardobeat 7y ago

> The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+ This typo might end up being the best prediction here. The winner in all this is going to be Apple TV, aka cable-all-over-again.

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zanybear 7y ago

There is also the option of Amazon buying Netflix or better yet Apple. So far I find Netflix content of higher quality than Disney. There is also a growing segment of the population that watches only YouTube. I find that is the main competition for Netflix.

mrep 7y ago

> Disney’s ownership of iconic franchises like Star Wars gives it something no money can buy. Lol, considering Disney themselves not only bought the iconic franchise star wars, but they also bought marvel and even Pixar. If Disney is good at anything, it's identifying under-capitalized brands, buying them and then milking them for all they worth.

Nelson69 7y ago

Where did Disney get all this delivery cred? They do seem to be taking their time and they've been gobbling things up and certainly have the content. Aren't they just an old media company though? I remember when Disney Channel was a pay channel with relatively bunk content; like it had some original stuff and then like ancient re-runs for the Mickey Mouse club and once fairly rarely they'd play a classic Disney movie. Tons of commercials too and they had like special "early access" adverts for the big next movie and toys and things like that. Maybe it's a different company now but I'll ask, with all their content: the disney stuff, star wars, marvel, fox, etc.. If they put it all on Disney+ at $7 a month, are they not leaving money on the table? I can't imagine there won't be up-selling or limited availability of certain media properties or something. The author is right, if it's all there at $7 and the app is great and they are bold and aggressive, then I would think Prime and Netflix, etc. will be in a bit of trouble. On the other hand, if Disney acts like they always have then I expect there to be like 10% good stuff, an advertising machine for whatever movie is next in the pipe and then just some bunk filler content.

runamok 7y ago
True. The idea that Disney would allow this is doubtful to me: > Disney puts a blockbuster like Avengers Endgame on its platform the same day it opens in theaters. Limiting distribution, sure... Though again they would be losing a lot of money to DVD/Bluray sales, etc. so again I doubt it: > After a few weeks it’s no longer in theaters. You can’t buy it. You can’t rent it. The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+.

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago

Disney has a following and Neflix has a following so that says to me that customers will pick one or the other or both there is room for both. The idea that one has to beat the other is good for completion but does not mean that one has to go out of business. I see it as a big plus since now they both have to compete for customers. Yeah for us.

wolco 7y ago

This article doesn't make any sense. If Disney is offering a service for a cheap 6.99 why do people stop using netflix? Disney has content for kids and superhero fans. This is not a netflix replacement but replacing whatever was in place before. Stock prices are popularity contests and Netflix may take a hit but Disney is undercutting the high prices on Disney/Marvel content it charges now and longterm it might be better if they merged with a studio offering more adult material. "Netflix changed how we watch TV, but it didn’t really change what we watch…" It changed what I watched. Netflix doesn't even offer most network shows in my country so I stopped watching a lot of those shows.

coldtea 7y ago

>Netflix changed how we watch TV, but it didn’t really change what we watch… Yeah, so? Who said we need/want/will change what we watch? >The problem is that no matter how much Netflix spends, it has no chance to catch up with its biggest rival… Disney? Who the fuck cares for Disney? 8 year olds or parents buying a subscription for them? >Disney owns Marvel, Pixar Animations, Star Wars, ESPN, National Geographic, Modern Family, and The Simpsons. Not to mention all the classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. So, mostly irrelevant stuff. ESPN has been going down for a decade or so, Mickey wont be making any revivals, and most people don't get Netflix to watch Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, or National Geographic.

reallydude 7y ago
> Mickey wont be making any revivals, and most people don't get Netflix to watch Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, or National Geographic. These articles act like I want to watch the same movies 100 times, so of course I'll drop a service with a dedication to creating new content. It makes no sense, but it does sound a lot like marketing hype by an affiliate.

tzs 7y ago

Where do Disney's TV channels fit into this? Besides the obvious Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior, they also own the FX channels and Freeform. Their movies currently eventually make it to those, and that is mostly where I've watched them. Sure, they take some time to get there. They are currently just up to 2016, with Moana, Finding Dory, Rogue One, and Doctor Strange being where they are up to in Disney animation, Pixar animation, Star Wars, and Marvel, respectively. But none of their franchises are ones that I need to keep current with anymore [1], so I don't mind. [1] I did subscribe to Netflix for a month a few months ago specifically to get up to date on Marvel, so I could see Endgame in theaters. That was a special case because I decided it would be too hard to avoid major spoilers in the two or three years it would take to show up on cable.

ralphc 7y ago

The author says that $6.99 a month is a no-brainer for his 12 year old daughter, but what about adults? NetFlix has R-rated content that I doubt Disney would produce or carry, and there will always be a market for that.

Grue3 7y ago

Disney values their family friendly image too much. Which is why they'll only ever produce safe boring stuff that doesn't take any risks. So you get these kid-friendly superhero and Star Wars movies, which are popular right now, but surely at some point an adult audience would want more? Especially when they're watching it in the privacy of their own room. Looking at Netflix originals (even if they're not very good), I can't see Disney making something like Narcos, 13 reasons why, Devilman, Love Death & Robots, hell even something like Sabrina (Satanic imagery) or She-Ra (gay stuff). Seriously, what shows in [1] excluding "Children and family" section can you see being streamed on Disney+? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...

davvolun 7y ago

I should have known better than to click on a click-bait article like this. Even if Disney+ enters the market and immediately dominates, that doesn't mean Netflix is dead. They'll have to (continue to) adjust and maybe their stock won't be competing with Amazon, but that's far from dead. Netflix managed to turn a dvd-rental-by-mail service into the first majorly successful streaming service, and they are using that to pivot into creating competitive original content. Netflix may survive, it may not, but this article was trash.

danwat1234 7y ago

"After a few weeks it’s no longer in theaters. You can’t buy it. You can’t rent it. The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+. " WRONG. Any movie or TV show is on bittorrent for free. It's simply not the case that the only way to watch it in that situation is thru subscribing to a streaming service.