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For a little background on the movie industry and antitrust law, the Hollywood studios once upon owned everything from the way movies were produced, distributed

For a little background on the movie industry and antitrust law, the Hollywood studios once upon owned everything from the way movies were produced, distributed and exhibited. The monopoly held by the studios was effectively broken up following WWII. Yes, there were multiple studios competing but individually they were engaging in antitrust behavior. This acquisition is essentially a waiving of the white flag and passing the torch. It will be allowed because big tech/Hollywood own politicians. However, and I think to your point, it is impossible to reconcile that Netflix is engaging in the same behavior (producing, distributing and exhibiting) as the Hollywood studios when the courts broke up the industry to allow fair competition.

dageshi 5y ago
Distribution was physical back in the day, your choice of cinema was dictated by location. Locking specific movies to specific cinemas was a detriment to the public for that reason. Does that matter when the alternative is via distribution by internet? Honestly, you can sub to netflix for one month, watch everything you want and then unsub, same with all the other services. Has there ever been a point in history where there's more content available for cheaper than right now?
- treis 5y ago
  No, but we are solidly in the consolidate and undercut competition phase. The issues arise in the use monopoly power to extract large profit phase.
  - dageshi 5y ago
    How? So long as there are multiple competitors after the same customers I don't really see how this happens. Hell, we only really have 3 major cloud computing platforms (along with some minor ones), but consistently the prices of everything they offer goes down.
    - treis 5y ago
      Because Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video et Al don't make money. At some point they're going to have to and that's when we see if you're right or not.
      - CyberDildonics 5y ago
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/04/20/netflix-new-subscriber-numbers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/04/20/netflix-n... Netflix has over 208 Million subscribers each paying a monthly fee. They are taking in multiple BILLIONS every month in revenue. They are also in complete control of their expenditures. They don't rely on commodities or regulations. If that isn't making money then I don't know what is.
        treis 5y ago
        Making money is when your revenues are higher than your costs.
        CyberDildonics 5y ago
        Do you think that only companies that pay dividends are "making money"? What about stock buybacks? Netflix's stock price is 480x what it was 20 years ago. It has a market cap of 280 Billion dollars. Are you one of the people that said "amazon doesn't make money" because they used their revenue to expand for multiple decades?
- throwaway_kufu 5y ago
  Location isn’t the legal standard…it would essentially be like saying customers can watch all Studio A movies at Theater A and then watch all Studio B movies at Theater B. Sure it’s more convenient online, competition being 1 click away, but antitrust still applies to online content creators/distribution businesses. So it’s more important to ask if you wanted to watch Netflix created content can you watch it outside Netflix? It’s not a simple yes or no, black/white kind of analysis though. You also have to look at the whole of the industry and when you do you will begin to see how the sausage is made and the antitrust nastiness. Say you want to create a movie/show you contact film company A, Director B, actor C. Turns out you can’t hire any of them because they have contracts with Netflix. New content creators can no longer compete or even enter the market to compete and new distributors will not have any content to distribute so they won’t be able to compete or enter the market. Even if it results in more/cheaper content, which may or may not be something to brag about, ultimately a competition is harmed and lack of competition is what harms the consumer.

dageshi 5y ago

Distribution was physical back in the day, your choice of cinema was dictated by location. Locking specific movies to specific cinemas was a detriment to the public for that reason. Does that matter when the alternative is via distribution by internet? Honestly, you can sub to netflix for one month, watch everything you want and then unsub, same with all the other services. Has there ever been a point in history where there's more content available for cheaper than right now?

treis 5y ago
No, but we are solidly in the consolidate and undercut competition phase. The issues arise in the use monopoly power to extract large profit phase.
- dageshi 5y ago
  How? So long as there are multiple competitors after the same customers I don't really see how this happens. Hell, we only really have 3 major cloud computing platforms (along with some minor ones), but consistently the prices of everything they offer goes down.
  - treis 5y ago
    Because Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video et Al don't make money. At some point they're going to have to and that's when we see if you're right or not.
    - CyberDildonics 5y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/04/20/netflix-new-subscriber-numbers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/04/20/netflix-n... Netflix has over 208 Million subscribers each paying a monthly fee. They are taking in multiple BILLIONS every month in revenue. They are also in complete control of their expenditures. They don't rely on commodities or regulations. If that isn't making money then I don't know what is.
      - treis 5y ago
        Making money is when your revenues are higher than your costs.
        CyberDildonics 5y ago
        Do you think that only companies that pay dividends are "making money"? What about stock buybacks? Netflix's stock price is 480x what it was 20 years ago. It has a market cap of 280 Billion dollars. Are you one of the people that said "amazon doesn't make money" because they used their revenue to expand for multiple decades?
throwaway_kufu 5y ago
Location isn’t the legal standard…it would essentially be like saying customers can watch all Studio A movies at Theater A and then watch all Studio B movies at Theater B. Sure it’s more convenient online, competition being 1 click away, but antitrust still applies to online content creators/distribution businesses. So it’s more important to ask if you wanted to watch Netflix created content can you watch it outside Netflix? It’s not a simple yes or no, black/white kind of analysis though. You also have to look at the whole of the industry and when you do you will begin to see how the sausage is made and the antitrust nastiness. Say you want to create a movie/show you contact film company A, Director B, actor C. Turns out you can’t hire any of them because they have contracts with Netflix. New content creators can no longer compete or even enter the market to compete and new distributors will not have any content to distribute so they won’t be able to compete or enter the market. Even if it results in more/cheaper content, which may or may not be something to brag about, ultimately a competition is harmed and lack of competition is what harms the consumer.