Bob Iger addressed this on the a16z podcast a few weeks back. He said 2 things really: * he thinks that content will beat out distribution every single time.

Bob Iger addressed this on the a16z podcast a few weeks back. He said 2 things really: * he thinks that content will beat out distribution every single time. And Disney has content Netflix doesn't and cannot get (think of Disneys huge catalogue and IP collections) * he said when he went to the board and proposed that they (a) give up a huge revenue stream and (b) spend a tonne of money building their own streaming service, he expected it to be a hard battle. He thought it would be very hard to convince investors to look at anything beyond the effect on the next quarter financials. Instead, once they heard the case, they demanded he actually go faster, spend more and be more aggressive. He said (I have not checked) that when they announced the move, the stock price went UP... https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9KR0UzeUMwVg/episode/MTQyOGZmOGMtMDY0NC00MWQ1LWIwY2UtZWQ0ODdiNGFmN2Ey?hl=en-GB&ved=2ahUKEwjx9cSKkt78AhUWiVwKHdWlAR0QjrkEegQIBhAF&ep=6 https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGV... Personally I think he made a pretty good case that content distributors were basically commodities and were priced as such (you get low margins). Bit content creators/owners were in a non-competitive position and so had much higher margins and better long term prospects. I guess in a way, we are back to "Netflix has to become HBO before HBO can become Netflix". Can Netflix use it's huge cash pile to build/acquire enough content to become Disney-like before Disney can build enough infrastructure/customer base to be Netflix?