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As a father my guess is Disney is winning. They'd get 2X my money if they had fine print that said "You have to pay again for Frozen". Basically they just have

As a father my guess is Disney is winning. They'd get 2X my money if they had fine print that said "You have to pay again for Frozen". Basically they just have to hook your kid on one thing and then they're getting your subscription. The number of rewatches of the same content has got to be through the roof for them. All the other streaming services are fighting over your remaining 1-3 slots in your household. Of them it would seem Amazon looks good because they make you think you're getting a deal with Prime, but it doesn't seem to have the same pull as a 5 year old who needs to watch Disney. The others also have the disadvantage that adults are going to know how to share an account. With kids you don't want to be coordinating it. As for UX, I don't quite understand why anything is ever taken off the streaming service. Isn't it one of the things that makes it better than a Blockbuster? Every movie you've ever had on can be left there. There's gotta be a way to shove the long tail content on some slower/less replicated infrastructure, but maybe it isn't a technical consideration.

arnvald 5y ago
Disney should easily be winning globally, but outside of America they're failing to launch their service in new countries. I have friends in Europe who'd pay for Disney+ to be able to watch Star Wars and Marvel series but they can't, because the launch is postponed until mid-2022. I'm quite surprised they haven't tried to launch faster, seeing that we have more lockdowns coming and people will be spending more time in front of tv again
baby 5y ago
Really? I don’t know anyone with Disney and everyone I know has netflix. Maybe for families with kids.
vlovich123 5y ago
It’s complex licensing deals and other revenue streams (hotels, airplanes, foreign broadcasts, regional monopolies etc) that are the reason. You accessing some cold content is not an issue for them. They have enough spare capacity to handle small volume requests like that easily.
judge2020 5y ago
> I don't quite understand why anything is ever taken off the streaming service. Probably won't happen for the first-party services like Disney Plus, Paramount, etc. but things leave Netflix because the deals for streaming usually last 5-15 years; no studio exec wants to be the name attached to something like "Netflix gets exclusive streaming rights to this film in perpetuity" when 50 years down the line it would've made more sense to relicense it to X other company or bring it into your own streaming library. It's not anywhere near a technical limitation like you suggest, it's a money issue.
deleted 5y ago
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oezi 5y ago
I don't get Disney+ at all, exactely because of this: if you want to watch Frozen 50 times, a DVD is a much better deal. You can get the entire Disney/Pixar catalog of kids movies for the price of a year's subscription.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  I was thinking along similar lines. If re-watching a small number of movies or shows is the primary use case then there are cheaper ways to achieve the result.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  DVD’s aren’t as seamless as launching a streaming service and playing a title. There’s also the aspect that a Disney Plus can be in multiple devices easily while DVD’s cannot without physical friction. (Even worse if we’re talking digital and you have different devices from different providers). Disney Plus meets the conscience criteria while having frictionless content switching if one’s kid wants to watch new content.
- vel0city 5y ago
  Its the convenience factor. Log in to the streaming app on <insert device here>, collection with UI easy enough for a kid to mostly figure out is right there good to go. Replicating this experience with DVDs means figuring out ripping them, setting up and managing a Plex/Emby server, teaching your kids to use this interface, etc. For many of us in the tech world that doesn't seem like a big ask but there's definitely tons of parents where they see learning how to rip a DVD to be a big ask.
ant6n 5y ago
Netflix has Peppa.

arnvald 5y ago

Disney should easily be winning globally, but outside of America they're failing to launch their service in new countries. I have friends in Europe who'd pay for Disney+ to be able to watch Star Wars and Marvel series but they can't, because the launch is postponed until mid-2022. I'm quite surprised they haven't tried to launch faster, seeing that we have more lockdowns coming and people will be spending more time in front of tv again

baby 5y ago

Really? I don’t know anyone with Disney and everyone I know has netflix. Maybe for families with kids.

vlovich123 5y ago

It’s complex licensing deals and other revenue streams (hotels, airplanes, foreign broadcasts, regional monopolies etc) that are the reason. You accessing some cold content is not an issue for them. They have enough spare capacity to handle small volume requests like that easily.

judge2020 5y ago

> I don't quite understand why anything is ever taken off the streaming service. Probably won't happen for the first-party services like Disney Plus, Paramount, etc. but things leave Netflix because the deals for streaming usually last 5-15 years; no studio exec wants to be the name attached to something like "Netflix gets exclusive streaming rights to this film in perpetuity" when 50 years down the line it would've made more sense to relicense it to X other company or bring it into your own streaming library. It's not anywhere near a technical limitation like you suggest, it's a money issue.

deleted 5y ago

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oezi 5y ago

I don't get Disney+ at all, exactely because of this: if you want to watch Frozen 50 times, a DVD is a much better deal. You can get the entire Disney/Pixar catalog of kids movies for the price of a year's subscription.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
I was thinking along similar lines. If re-watching a small number of movies or shows is the primary use case then there are cheaper ways to achieve the result.
Jcowell 5y ago
DVD’s aren’t as seamless as launching a streaming service and playing a title. There’s also the aspect that a Disney Plus can be in multiple devices easily while DVD’s cannot without physical friction. (Even worse if we’re talking digital and you have different devices from different providers). Disney Plus meets the conscience criteria while having frictionless content switching if one’s kid wants to watch new content.
vel0city 5y ago
Its the convenience factor. Log in to the streaming app on <insert device here>, collection with UI easy enough for a kid to mostly figure out is right there good to go. Replicating this experience with DVDs means figuring out ripping them, setting up and managing a Plex/Emby server, teaching your kids to use this interface, etc. For many of us in the tech world that doesn't seem like a big ask but there's definitely tons of parents where they see learning how to rip a DVD to be a big ask.

ant6n 5y ago

Netflix has Peppa.