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> Disney+ initially available at what I considered a fair price It was a completely unsustainable predatory price aimed at making initial marketshare. Disney+

> Disney+ initially available at what I considered a fair price It was a completely unsustainable predatory price aimed at making initial marketshare. Disney+'s price target is roughly £30 per month... As is Netflix's.

GordonS 5y ago
I would respectfully disagree - the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me. I see Disney+ as an "add on" streaming service - something you might get on top off either NetFlix or Amazon Prime, and as such I'd expect to stream far less content from Disney+. Even with 2 young kids, this has indeed been the case.
- chongli 5y ago
  the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me Sustainable in terms of maintaining the same old catalogue indefinitely? Or sustainable enough to finance new films and series? That's the problem. The existing catalogue costs almost nothing to stream while new shows cost a ton to produce.
  - extrapickles 5y ago
    Creating content is somewhat expensive, but not unreasonably so for their subscriber counts. A live action TV show costs $3-15 million to produce. They have ~116 million subscribers. If they “invest” $2/subscriber/month into new content, that means they can make 15-77 new episodes per month (a film could be considered to take up several episode slots).
    - chongli 5y ago
      Shang-Chi cost $150-200 million. Avengers: Infinity War cost double that. That’s just two of the many films they’ve produced over the past few years. Look at their upcoming schedule for Phase 4 [1]. It’s extremely aggressive! And that’s just Marvel cinematic universe films. It doesn’t include Star Wars or Pixar or any mainline Disney films, nor does it include any TV series. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Phase_Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Pha...
      - Retric 5y ago
        For perspective depending on how you count Disney+ is Disney’s 4th streaming service. Their all about making people pay as much as possible at the cost of convenience. Avengers infinity war isn’t an exclusive on any of their streaming services making it’s cost to produce meaningless. Disney is all about milking content with ultra cheap sequels / derivatives and old content, that’s what’s going to be included on Disney+ not a new 100+M dollar film. Remember they have had several Cable channels for years they know how to make cheap content. That said, they could easily pay for several big budget movies per year as Disney+ exclusives without upping it’s initial price. Instead they have zero interest in being good value for money rather than maximizing profits and minimizing risks.
      - nebula8804 5y ago
        I just want to comment at how sad it is that so much money is being wasted on movies like this. It feels like society has irrecoverably shifted to some different reality and thus the studios keep focusing on these films. I was extremely emotionally invested in the success of a recent film by my favorite director: Edgar Wright. The movie "Last Night in Soho" had a supposed production budget of ~40 million but only earned ~4 million on Box office open. It was competing with all non superhero films for scraps because ~90% of the box office profits were taken by the superhero movies/007.
      - philjohn 5y ago
        Yes - but it's likely they'll be releasing those in cinema's and not doing premiere's on Disney+ as they did during the lockdowns.
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  > the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me To be blunt, what you felt about it wasn't really relevant. It wasn't sustainable in terms of revenue, and was a fragment of what Disney received from their previous licensing deals. It would not even cover residuals for existing content, never mind new production. The average household spend on content is about $60pm, and that figure in real terms is surprisingly stable.

GordonS 5y ago

I would respectfully disagree - the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me. I see Disney+ as an "add on" streaming service - something you might get on top off either NetFlix or Amazon Prime, and as such I'd expect to stream far less content from Disney+. Even with 2 young kids, this has indeed been the case.

chongli 5y ago
the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me Sustainable in terms of maintaining the same old catalogue indefinitely? Or sustainable enough to finance new films and series? That's the problem. The existing catalogue costs almost nothing to stream while new shows cost a ton to produce.
- extrapickles 5y ago
  Creating content is somewhat expensive, but not unreasonably so for their subscriber counts. A live action TV show costs $3-15 million to produce. They have ~116 million subscribers. If they “invest” $2/subscriber/month into new content, that means they can make 15-77 new episodes per month (a film could be considered to take up several episode slots).
  - chongli 5y ago
    Shang-Chi cost $150-200 million. Avengers: Infinity War cost double that. That’s just two of the many films they’ve produced over the past few years. Look at their upcoming schedule for Phase 4 [1]. It’s extremely aggressive! And that’s just Marvel cinematic universe films. It doesn’t include Star Wars or Pixar or any mainline Disney films, nor does it include any TV series. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Phase_Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Pha...
    - Retric 5y ago
      For perspective depending on how you count Disney+ is Disney’s 4th streaming service. Their all about making people pay as much as possible at the cost of convenience. Avengers infinity war isn’t an exclusive on any of their streaming services making it’s cost to produce meaningless. Disney is all about milking content with ultra cheap sequels / derivatives and old content, that’s what’s going to be included on Disney+ not a new 100+M dollar film. Remember they have had several Cable channels for years they know how to make cheap content. That said, they could easily pay for several big budget movies per year as Disney+ exclusives without upping it’s initial price. Instead they have zero interest in being good value for money rather than maximizing profits and minimizing risks.
    - nebula8804 5y ago
      I just want to comment at how sad it is that so much money is being wasted on movies like this. It feels like society has irrecoverably shifted to some different reality and thus the studios keep focusing on these films. I was extremely emotionally invested in the success of a recent film by my favorite director: Edgar Wright. The movie "Last Night in Soho" had a supposed production budget of ~40 million but only earned ~4 million on Box office open. It was competing with all non superhero films for scraps because ~90% of the box office profits were taken by the superhero movies/007.
    - philjohn 5y ago
      Yes - but it's likely they'll be releasing those in cinema's and not doing premiere's on Disney+ as they did during the lockdowns.
Mindwipe 5y ago
> the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me To be blunt, what you felt about it wasn't really relevant. It wasn't sustainable in terms of revenue, and was a fragment of what Disney received from their previous licensing deals. It would not even cover residuals for existing content, never mind new production. The average household spend on content is about $60pm, and that figure in real terms is surprisingly stable.