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Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this me
by afavour 11mo ago
Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this merger gets approved, in the current administration you never know).
From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix backend infrastructure at the very least.
- didip 11mo agoHm… I don’t know, I can at least cancel my separate HBO Max subscription on Prime Video now (since I already paid for Netflix).
- Mindwipe 11mo agoI think it's extremely unlikely that they combine the two services in the next five to ten years. They will probably do a Disney+/Hulu bundle at some point.
- sethops1 11mo agoSurely the move now would be to rename the app to Netlfix Max
- elpakal 11mo agoAnd then to Max
- falcor84 11mo agoIf we're doing suggestions, I vote for "Maxflix"
- smegger001 11mo ago"Maxflix" sounds like a name for a pornstudio but it is i guess better than the alternative of "NetB.O."
- hulitu 11mo agoVery close to Netflix's core business: violence.
- SunlightEdge 11mo agoI don't find Netflix "live action" movies to be super violent and there are a lot of non-violent shows. Its animations can be quite violent though (and those are good quality). From the little I know, it, like every other big platform, does shy away from sex. This has been a theme for decades - its ok to be violent but sex is a no no.
- butlike 11mo agoMaxNet if you want to go final form Fortune 100
- yabatopia 11mo agoTo keep it more in line with other brands: - Netflix Max: basic subscription with ads, no 4K - Netflix Max Ultra: basic subscription with ads, but with 4K - Netflix Pro Max: standard subscription without ads, no 4K - Netflix Pro Max Ultra: standard subscription without ads, with 4K You can add a Mobile VIP package for one extra viewer outside your house, but only for Pro plans.
- Maxion 11mo agoThere's still the one layer that comes with Dolby Atmos and access to the WB back catalogue
- autoexec 11mo agoLet's be honest, all the netflix plans will have ads just like they do now. They might not interrupt your show while you're in the middle of it, but you'll get ads no matter what. Ads as soon as the credits roll, a barrage of full screen ads if you pause a show for more than 10 seconds, full screen ads the moment you open the app, etc.
- fanatic2pope 11mo agoAnd for shows they produce, product placements galore. Like when characters suddenly started saying "just bing it!" to each other.
- butlike 11mo agoNetflix Plus (Netflix+) which is a side subscription to all of that which lets you syncopate different playback screens to one account, or some other esoteric value add which muddies the waters
- Velofellow 11mo agoHuFlixPrime was my portmanteau of choice in 2010-ish but mainly because I felt the coming dawn of cable company style pricing encroaching; more and more folks adding multiple streaming services to get close to what cable packages could offer. I still like the name. Edit: didn't Netflix have a feature called "Netflix Max" on the PS3 app? I remember it really liking it to find what to watch.
- that_guy_iain 11mo agoThat would connect the companies. If they're keeping them separate it could be an anti-trust move or more that these companies are going to start trading studios which has been seen in other industries where they trade markets, like the food delivery company you've been ordering from for years has probably changed hands a few times during that time period and probably name too.
- afavour 11mo agoYou could make the connection a formal one. Years back HBO’s streaming services were actually provided by MLB, they had a contract together. No reason the same couldn’t happen with Netflix and Warner. Could have happened pre-merger too but it wouldn’t have been in Netflix’s interest.
- PaulHoule 11mo agoWhat happens to HBO Max? Will you be able to watch all that with a regular Netflix subscription? Seems the business doesn't make sense unless New co revenue >= Netflix + HBO revenue Also: is Netflix going to take the theatrical and traditional TV businesses seriously at all?
- afavour 11mo agoI imagine it’ll end up looking very much like the Disney + Hulu + ESPN bundle. Minor savings but still more expensive than an individual subscription. > traditional TV business This was actually excluded from the deal. CNN, TNT, Discovery and the rest are being spun off into their own company. Presumably to wither and die.
- turnsout 11mo agoIf they like money, they'll just roll HBO into Netflix and raise prices. I really doubt Disney's complex bundling/pricing scheme is helping their bottom line.
- afavour 11mo agoI dunno about that. They introduced the ad supported tier as a way to reach consumers at a lower price point and apparently it’s been very successful. I don’t think they want to lose those customers by jacking up prices now.
- turnsout 11mo agoTheir prices have been inching up. I pay for the lowest non-ad tier, and it's $17.99/mo. If I wanted 4K & HDR, it's up to $24.99/mo. At $7.99/mo for the ad-supported tier, they could easily bump that to $9.99/mo if it included HBO/Hulu/ESPN.
- blairbeckwith 11mo agoNetflix has raised prices about 25% at the premium tier since they released the ad-free version in 2022. The with-ads plan has also seen increases since launch.
- CamouflagedKiwi 11mo agoI don't know. I never really had a sensible option to watch Game of Thrones legally, it's a little late for that now but presumably this would mean it's on Netflix which would be significantly better for me. (I guess useful for House of the Dragon now). I don't think I care much about the upcoming Harry Potter show but if I did want to watch that, I'm not sure what my options would be, and Netflix seems better than me having to take out _another_ subscription. Obviously having one monopoly streaming service would be bad, but in the meantime having more of them is also not great for consumers since they each charge a flat fee so you have to pay more to see shows from different studios. The ideal would be something more akin to music streaming where you can more or less pick a provider these days, but video streaming doesn't seem to be moving there in any hurry.
- skywhopper 11mo agolol at the idea that Netflix would ever produce something as high-quality as GoT or HotD. Those days will soon be over.
- afavour 11mo agoThe Crown is absolutely a prestige TV show. Stranger Things is also high quality and high budget. You could probably include Bridgerton in there too, it's not my kind of show but I can still recognize that it's a well put together one.
- ToucanLoucan 11mo agoThe problem is all the crap kills the prestige. HBO remains what HBO is because they don't put out 600 other shows besides Game of Thrones that are utter garbage. Netflix is the Walmart of entertainment at this point. Yeah you can find basically anything there- and VERY occasionally, you'll find something damn good- but you're wading through a sea of mediocre shit to do so. And like, personally I unsubbed forever ago because I'm not interested in subsidizing all the garbage to get the occasional Frankenstein. Meanwhile I've maintained an HBO subscription for that entire time. Obviously I am but one data point here and I know my opinion is in the minority, but yeah. I don't pay attention much to Netflix.
- meowface 11mo agoMaybe there are licensing restrictions or other things that prevent it, but wouldn't it make more sense to combine HBO Max and Netflix into a single app? Or at least make all HBO Max content also available in Netflix (and then eventually sunset HBO Max). That would make a Netflix subscription a much more compelling purchase for a ton of people.
- ComputerGuru 11mo agoThey might make less money with one super subscription than two separate ones.
- alistairSH 11mo agoYeah, I can easily see something like 2 separate at $20/month vs 1 super at $35/month (make-believe figures). Assuming all WB and Netflix customers move to the super platform, that's a loss for Netflix (assuming the super platform doesn't significantly reduce their costs). And the $35 might be more than some set of current Netflix subscribers want to pay, so they drop the service, so an even bigger potential loss. Certainly, I have no desire to subsidize sports fans via a higher Netflix super package.
- philistine 11mo agoWe're reinventing cable!
- butlike 11mo agoYup. All of them combined would probably be ~$100-120/mo. which is, lo and behold, the price of a cable package
- parineum 11mo agoWith inflation, it's much cheaper. Still, the real issue is one that both cable and streaming services don't solve. People don't want to pay for what they don't watch. Both streaming and cable have the price of everything they own and produce built into the price. When you subscribe to either, you're subsidizing a bunch of stuff you don't care about. People don't want to pay $20 a month to watch stranger things in oreer to subsidize a bunch of stuff they don't watch. It was the same with cable. Netflix is just one giant cable bundle, it always has been.
- giancarlostoro 11mo agoGood news is more Warner Bros content, bad news is, only 2 seasons worth per IP. Netflix drives me up a wall with how often they cancel interesting shows, reminds me of SyFy, you find something interesting and then they just cancel it. Sometimes people take a break from watching a show, but they always come back. At least end it cleanly damn it. It's why I don't bother with Netflix original shows unless they've got like four seasons.
- nonethewiser 11mo ago> Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers This is a very common narrative to this news. But coming into this news, I think the most common narrative against streaming was essentially "There is not enough consolidation." People were happy when Netflix was the streaming service, but then everyone pulled their content and have their own (Disney, Paramount, etc.)
- yojo 11mo agoNetflix was also still in the “grow users at all cost” phase. They have since moved to “grow revenue at all costs.” Everyone likes a service when it’s subsidized by VC dollars. Until they inevitably start turning the screws.
- jasode 11mo ago>Everyone likes a service when it’s subsidized by VC dollars. Netflix went public in 2002. It was +8 years later that the streaming-only service was launched in 2010. The digital streaming wasn't "subsidized by VC". Netflix had more content from everybody back then because the other studios licensed their content for cheap prices to Netflix. But those studios then realized that Netflix was growing rapidly on the backs of their content. Once those multi-year contracts expired, studios like Disney didn't renew with Netflix and instead, started their own platform (e.g. Disney+).
- shermantanktop 11mo agoThese content library contracts are only for a couple of years, and each time one lapses, some terms get negotiated. Nobody in the streaming industry is successful because they have a long term lock on someone else’s content. It’s all about eyeballs and margins.
- aidenn0 11mo agoNetflix had a 4 year deal with Starz, which is where a significant chunk of their early streaming content came from (Including all the Disney films).
- davidw 11mo ago> But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison There are already noises about FCC or DOJ leaning on things in order to 'correct' that.
- philistine 11mo agoOn the pure technical side of their streaming services, Netflix refuses to play ball with platform owners to integrate with services. Netflix on Apple TV has zero conceit for the platform. WB on the other hand is very typical of other streaming services. I wonder what will win out?
- airstrike 11mo agoThe acquirer wins.
- shermantanktop 11mo agoIf the provider isn’t huge, they obey the house rules, and those rules will probably lead to better results than their silly ideas. If the provider is big and experienced, they negotiate to get to do what they want, and they have their own opinions that work.
- wooger 11mo agoI don't see what Netflix's play is here. If you're in the netflix app, they're happy. AppleTV integration just effectively adds more homescreen shortcuts taking you back into Netflix e.g. from the AppleTV app 'continue watching' menu.
- toomanyrichies 11mo agoIf it turns out that Netflix is more interested in Warner Brothers' IP than in things like CNN, they'll just sell those less-interesting pieces off. Quite possibly (and quite unfortunately) to the Ellisons.
- orochimaaru 11mo agoThey are not acquiring CNN. They are interested in hbomax and content IP. All the other news and talk shows will be spun off to a new company called discovery global which is to be sold off separately.
- ghaff 11mo agoIt's probably a mixed bag. On the one hand, competition good I guess? On the other hand, if we're not going to have a music situation where the vast majority of mainstream content is available on most of the major platforms, fragmentation is pretty consumer unfriendly. Netflix is pretty much a studio at this point. Not sure that back-end infrastructure or client apps is really a differentiator for anyone. An individual may find that one service is "better" in whatever respect but it's really about exclusive content. As a consumer I certainly hope that this means there's one less streaming service to deal with (though I'm no longer an HBO subscriber at the moment) so long as pricing doesn't go up too much.
- camillomiller 11mo agoHere in the EU it’s great news if this means HBO contents are coming on Netflix. WBD has had so fare the absolute worse policy for international rights distribution for their shows, with policies varying wildly from season to season.
- wooger 11mo agoI fear Sky and whoever else already has long term exclusive deals for HBO shows across the EU will continue to make things a mess.
- testdelacc1 11mo agoDon’t count the Ellisons out. Firstly, they control the White House. If the American government doesn’t give approval for this merger Netflix pays Warner Bros $5 billion and walks away. That leaves them open to a future Ellison takeover. Second, even if the purchase goes through they can still get a win, just a smaller one. Their goals of creating a Fox News like media empire are still alive. CNN doesn’t fit with Netflix and will be spun out and when it is they can submit a bid for that company. The Ellisons will then control CBS and CNN. Meanwhile, as Netflix customers we can all look forward to paying more, but without the quality content that’s HBO’s trademark. The theatre goers among us will have to accept fewer movies getting to the theatre and going straight to streaming instead. Creative folks will have one fewer major employer, giving them less bargaining power. For voters, viewers and workers there was no winning no matter who made the winning bid.
- taeric 11mo agoThis particular one could be ok for them? A major cost for Netflix in the modern era is licensing contracts that never adjusted to the streaming world. As such, consumers may actually get access to some backlog of WB stuff that is otherwise not worth offering?
- throwaway20222 11mo agoMy guess is you are right for some properties that WB owns outright, but legacy IP that has rights shared, especially pre-streaming rights will still have a lot of barriers/untangling to do. I think Netflix is the most well run media company today by a mile, but also on the spectrum of quality/art -vs- straight money/tech domination they fall into the latter category, and they are the among the least friendly to creators as far as contract/rights. We will see.
- taeric 11mo agoTotally fair. The rights around a lot of media is a giant mess. Is why songs used on some movies are not the same as the ones that were used in theaters. And is just baffling for people from the outside to consider.
- dylan604 11mo agoEqually if not more baffling is that songs used in one region for DVDs might not be the same as other regions because of the same licensing issues
- mushufasa 11mo agoIn their books (e.g. "No Rules Rules" Netflix seems extremely attractive to creators because they pay top dollar, as a general policy, and have the internal decision-making processes that support making bold bets on art without committees that push "safer" creative choices.
- bigbuppo 11mo ago
- khy 11mo ago> Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. I tend to see much more discussion about how the main downside is for sellers of content. Why is this bad for consumers?
- andsoitis 11mo ago> Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. WBD was on an increasingly unprofitable path, and we know where that road leads.
- WorldMaker 11mo agoThe exact same road that generally leads to the same sort of problematic consolidation? At best, WBD could have gone bankrupt and a court order could require it to be sold as parts with no one studio getting a significant chunk, scattering WBD's IP moat across many competitors. But most likely it just means someone like Netflix would have the chance to make a smaller offer for the same kind of deal on a WBD with a worse negotiating position. Same consequences, different day.
- andsoitis 11mo ago> The exact same road that generally leads to the same sort of problematic consolidation? But more drawn out. This way, creatives, consumers will get a reinvigorated outlet, rather than seeing it spiraling downward.
- xenospn 11mo agoFreeBSD to the moon!
- newsclues 11mo agoAs a Canadian many people here say, “At least we aren’t American” as cope for the rot and corruption of our country. It’s a very toxic way to view things.
- guywithahat 11mo agoWhat would be wrong with Larry buying it? He doesn't own a media empire, and would be incentivized to compete. Larry buying it seems like it would have been better from a consumer perspective
- afavour 11mo ago> He doesn't own a media empire He just bought Paramount?
- otterley 11mo agoThat’s David Ellison, not Larry. (Same family, though.)
- afavour 11mo agoYou’re right, apologies, I forgot and now can’t edit my original post. Point still stands, just with a different name!
- WorldMaker 11mo agoTechnically Skydance is led David Ellison, Larry's son. Though, he's a trustfund kid and you can make a case that Larry owns it indirectly. (But if you want to make that case then it implies that Larry owns two media empires given his daughter Megan Ellison owns slightly less successful Skydance rival Annapurna.)
- wiredpancake 11mo ago[dead]
- otterley 11mo agoDavid Ellison, not Larry. (David is Larry’s son and CEO of Paramount Skydance.)
- Bhilai 11mo agoI am paying for both the services right now. I dont mind consolidating that payment and hopefully pay a slightly lower price.
- ninth_ant 11mo agoThat is not how the world works, be it the past present or future.
- bko 11mo agoWhy is this a negative for consumers? Doesn't everyone complain how they have to subscribe to 5 different streaming services, and plenty of people have to pay for a service just to enjoy one or two series? I don't think consolidation is necessarily bad. It makes sense from a cost perspective too. I guess they could just license out the content, but this will probably grow the catalog a lot.
- jajuuka 11mo agoThe problem doesn't appear immediately; it appears over time where the market has been consolidated into only a couple companies and then they can raise prices as much as they want because there is no alternative. This is what cable was like for a long time. Part of subscription fatigue is the constantly raising prices of these services that used to be very cheap. Netflix having WB content isn't a bad thing, the problem is ownership because it will not be available elsewhere.
- beambot 11mo agoConsolidation means that incumbents rely on fickle intrinsic motivation rather than competitive pressure to keep quality high and prices low. All too often, monopolies or oligopies become complacent and merely "extract rents".
- cyanydeez 11mo agoNumber goes up, content goes down.
- dasil003 11mo agoThe production side is the problem. Netflix churns out shovelware crap designed to be on in the background. Every once in a while they get lucky or stick their neck out to acquire something good, but the batting average is very low. HBO on the other hand has the highest batting average, and the brand actually still stands for quality. Of course Netflix is saying all the right things now to keep anti-trust off their backs, but at some which culture do you think is going to win out?
- dbbk 11mo ago
- deadbabe 11mo agoHBO Max will need a new logo.
- subtlesoftware 11mo agoI'm actually looking forward to a bigger library on Netflix. Happy to pay a few more dollars per month for Netflix instead of managing ephemeral subscriptions to various streaming services.
- throwoutway 11mo ago> Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate For a while... Eventually, you can expect that functions will be streamlined, compacted, and impacted
- letmeinhere 11mo ago> In June 2025, WBD announced plans to separate its Streaming & Studios and Global Networks divisions into two separate publicly traded companies. This separation is now expected to be completed in Q3 2026, prior to the closing of this transaction. The newly separated publicly traded company holding the Global Networks division, Discovery Global, will include premier entertainment, sports and news television brands around the world including CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., and Discovery, free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as Discovery+ and Bleacher Report. So no, I don't think this gets in the way of Ellison taking over the rest of TV news; if anything it seems like it smooths the path.
- sleepybrett 11mo agoEllison is already in trumps pocket, netflix is going to have to up it's bribes or else somehow paramount will end up with the studio.
- zihaoyu 11mo ago> I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. I don't see why Netflix wants to keep any of HBO Max tech. Edit: the deck[1] from Netflix webcast mentions: > Uniting Netflix’s world-class member experience and global reach with Warner Bros.’ renowned franchises and extensive library will… It seems obvious Netflix is only interested in WB's IP's and content catalog. [1] https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_events/2025/Dec/05/Netflix-WBD-deck.pdf https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_events/2025/Dec/05...
- AtlasBarfed 11mo agoIP acquisition makes stuff like this inevitable. And the streaming companies still aren't good enough at making and sustaining content, while the older companies simply can make better stuff still. It might be a path to breaking up some of the media conglomerates. Even if it's just different, newer conglomerates, maybe better media and news will shake out for a bit. But with big tech making EVERYTHING worse it touches with no regards for wetware customers, it's probably a bad thing.
- AtNightWeCode 11mo agoSounds like something a buyer would say. Surely Netflix can handle HBO traffic better and cheaper. Maybe HBO are stuck in some deals. But it is a no-brainer to trash the HBO backend over time.
- BatFastard 11mo agoHonestly the HBO streaming engineers should be promptly shot (or possibly their managers). HBO has the worst streaming interface of any service. Netflix on the other hand is quite good.
- 8fingerlouie 11mo agoignoring all "hate" against streaming services, you have to at least give Netflix credit where it's due. They contribute a lot to the open source community, and their engineering blog is always a good read. Granted, not many people will benefit from their specific type of problems, but for those of us that work with large scale infrastructure, there's often inspiration to be had. And no, it's usually not directly applicable in a financial setting. Most of the time it's actually the exact opposite, where Netflix thrives on distributed loads, eventual consistency, etc, finance is a lot more reliant on "real time" events.
- raw_anon_1111 11mo agoHow is this “consolidation” any different than the pre-2020 landscape when everyone was just licensing to Netflix by default?
- swisniewski 11mo agoGenerally with large acquisitions, product integration tends to precede infrastructure integration by years to decades. Look at GitHub as an example, they were acquired in 2018, and are just migrating to Azure now after 7 years. Microsoft shipping integrations with GitHub in 20108. This is definitely the case with several Salesforce acquisitions (early product integration, little, no, or much later infrastructure integration). So… I predict some level of content integration within a few months. But infra integration is likely years away.
- wooger 11mo agoWhat infra needs to be integrated? They just get the rights, add the movies and shows to the Netflix CDN, turn off whatever b.s. infrastructure Warner were previously operating.
- swisniewski 10mo agolook up the parent tree... There was this statement: > From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix backend infrastructure at the very least. The HBO Max service has something like 128M subscribers. This is < half of the 301M subscribers Netflix has, but is still a large number. Certainly there's going to be some duplication, but it would be unwise to suddenly disrupt the delivery vehicles that you have 128M paying customers using in favor of a different delivery vehicle. So, you should expect all the various HBO Max clients in existence to continue working for at least 5 years after the acquisition closes, if not longer. Suddenly turning that off and saying "go use the Netflix app" wouldn't be good. In any case, moving all the WB content onto the Netflix CDN and making it available on all the Netflix clients is "product integration", not "infrastructure integration". You are likely to see that very quickly. Weeks to months after the acquisition closes. But, getting rid of all the HBO Max client software that talks to the HBO Max Servers running in whatever data center or cloud WB is using, and downloading video from whatever CDN WB has, and all the associated infra stuff, that's infra integration and it won't happen for a while. I think that will take 5-10 years.
- nailer 11mo agoI imagine it probably would’ve been bought by David Ellison rather than Larry Ellison but that probably would be an effective use of the Warner Brothers IP – have you seen a review of the Suicide Squad game? For a piece of content viewed as the spiritual successor to the award-winning Batman Arkham games it is very disappointing.
- MarkMarine 11mo agoas a positive, maybe this will make fast forward work on HBO streaming. One of the little UX pebbles in my shoe that Netflix has figured out. Jokes aside, HBO is a prestige TV brand. Netflix had a deep desire to create and run premium content previously, but the cost and volume they could put out was clearly a problem for the business. Maybe HBO becomes the premium, prestige TV brand and we get 1-2 series at a time from that + movies, and Netflix remains as it is. This consumer would be quite happy with that.
- supportengineer 11mo agoNegative for consumers? I am over the moon about this development.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]