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It's always great to read about how the people the own the means of distribution aquire also the means of production, trying to create a meta-monopoly. /sarcasm
by mihaic 10mo ago
It's always great to read about how the people the own the means of distribution aquire also the means of production, trying to create a meta-monopoly. /sarcasm
I'm rooting for someone on the regulary side disliking all the crap that Netflix produces, and just shuts the whole thing down. Those 5 billion they'd have to pay for a breakup fee in that case would have me feeling better that I couldn't cancel their service, since my family pesters me to keep it.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- raw_anon_1111 10mo agoThere is no “monopoly” on either content distribution or creation. Amazon and Apple are both trillion dollar companies that have streaming services. Then there is Disney, Comcast (Peacock), Paramount, STARZ (standalone company), and AMC
- mihaic 10mo agoTechnically, you're right. I feel like there needs to be new terms to describe though the staleness of the industry. "Oligopoly" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo agoHow many competitors do you need? Apple, Disney, Netflix, Comcast, and Paramount are five major competitors. If you as a hypothetical video content creator want to get your content distributed to a wide audience, you have five companies to go to, you can publish it to any of the video on demand services, try to monetize it through ads on YouTube, etc. We aren’t in the 30s anymore where the only way you could see content was by going to the movie theater. Before HBO Max was a thing, they were already selling distribution rights of content to Netflix. No one said that was a monopoly.
- mihaic 10mo ago> How many competitors do you need? Apple, Disney, Netflix, Comcast, and Paramount are five major competitors. I actually already agree that the number is not the problem. I can't articulate better, but somehow these don't actually feel like "competitors" in the classical market sense, but rather as stars orbiting the same center, as they're all moving in the same direction, and from time to time merging with one another.
- purpleflame1257 10mo agoThat was more or less the case from the advent of TV onwards, though.
- mihaic 10mo agoNot really. At that point TV was competing with cinema for attention, and each needed to provide something different. Now the mediums have merged as well.
- thfuran 10mo agoMonopoly is that word. "Pure Monopoly" is the term for the platonic ideal that people like to insist companies don't live up to and so aren't at all monopolistic.
- ecshafer 10mo agoIMO I think we are going to see Paramount, STARZ and AMC bought up soon. I don't think they can compete with Disney, Comcast or Netflix in size.
- andsoitis 10mo ago> IMO I think we are going to see Paramount, STARZ and AMC bought up soon. You do know that David Ellison (Larry Ellison's son), through his Skydance Media, acquired Paramount Global (including its parent, National Amusements) in a merger completed in August 2025. He also wanted Warner Brothers. I'm super glad that nepo baby isn't getting what he wants. He is using his daddy to talk to Trump to try stop it though: https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/media/paramount-skydances-david-ellison-meets-with-trump-officials-as-netflix-makes-highest-bid-for-wbd-sources/ https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/media/paramount-skydances-davi...
- ecshafer 10mo agoYou're right, I forgot about that. Paramount with Sky is pretty big.
- DharmaPolice 10mo agoThe legal definition of monopoly in some jurisdictions means anyone with a large enough of a market share able to influence pricing, etc in a market. A market share as low as 25% can be called a monopoly. Does HBO+Netflix have a 25% share of the streaming market? I've no idea, but possibly.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo agoMarket share matters little when most people have multiple streaming services they use simultaneously. It’s not like Apple and Google where the majority of people either have an Android or iOS based phone. YouTube I believe has more viewing hours than Netflix.
- array_key_first 10mo agoBut none of the streaming services are competing because they don't offer the same products, by design. Nobody is switching from Apple TV to Netflix because they don't share any shows - they buy both.
- lotsofpulp 10mo agoSo? I also go to two different restaurants to buy different food, or two different websites to buy two different things, or fly two different airlines to go to two different places, etc.
- array_key_first 10mo agoNot the same, those directly compete. We all know IP doesn't work like this. If you say you want Mexican food and I say Restaurant X is closed but we can go to Y, that's probably fine. If you say you want to watch ratatouille and I say no, but we can watch ratatouing, which is 2 bucks at the DVD graveyard bin at Walmart, you'll say no.
- lotsofpulp 10mo ago
- popalchemist 10mo agoThere are only 4 major streaming services (Netflix, Prime, HBO Max, and Hulu), and only 5 major film studios, of which WB is one and it represents on its own 13% of the theatrical market. The combination of Netflix + WB + HBOMax likely represents well more than 25% of the entire market (when you combine streaming and theatrical).
- raw_anon_1111 10mo agoAmazon and Apple are both trillion dollar companies who have made forays into theatrical release. They both spend billions on content. Besides 75% of US households have Amazon Prime and therefore have access to Amazon Prime Video. More time is spent on YouTube than any of the streaming services you named.
- popalchemist 10mo agoTrue, but Youtube is not quite the same category since it's UGC. It's not a distribution channel for mainstream feature films or TV. At least not a primary distribution channel.
- famouswaffles 10mo agoDisney Plus is the 2nd biggest Streaming Service around in terms of subscribers, revenue and income.
- jmkd 10mo agoNetflix has had a large production studio outside Madrid for several years already.
- hedora 10mo agoIf this goes like all the other media mergers this year, the only regulatory scrutiny will involve Netflix allowing the executive branch to install a censor / ombudsman that has final say on their news and documentary content.
- jimbokun 10mo ago> would have me feeling better that I couldn't cancel their service, since my family pesters me to keep it. Sounds like they're still creating popular content.