Why Disney+ Freaks Me Out About the Future of Streaming

[steven36]

It certainly seems like the world of streaming video entered a new epoch recently. Last week, Comcast finally handed the reigns of Hulu over to Disney, which means the company will have not only the impending Disney+ streaming service but also a live TV service that competes with the big cable companies. Then, the very same day, we saw a genuinely awful outcome of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, when CEO Randall Stephenson announced that Friends and other WarnerMedia-owned shows would be pulled from Netflix to run exclusively on the company’s forthcoming streaming platform. Apple reminded us of its foray into streaming with the release of the new Apple TV app, which will support TV+ later this year, and cable channel IFC announced it’s own streaming service for a monthly fee of $6. Look at all those content fiefdoms.

 

 

 

 

As these companies snatch hold of rights and create their new exclusive content, they’re cordoning off their empires and demanding you to either ignore some of the most talked about TV shows and films available or pay your way into their services. Either way, it’s a dark future for the streamer.

 

Now you might think “well I can just not subscribe!” or maybe “I don’t need to revisit Friends or the enormous catalog of classic films Warner now owns.” And that’s very true.

 

But for many, that’s not realistic. People naturally want to be included in conversations. The internet has only bolstered the water cooler imperative of keeping up with mass culture events like Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones.

 

Disney recognizes this. The company now owns the rights to some of the largest franchises in the business and is slowly pulling them form all other competing streaming platforms to force people to watch them on Disney+. Want to watch a Marvel movie or Star Wars? What about X-Men? Got a hankering for those blue Avatar people? Need to check out Frozen, Moana, The Incredibles, or Aladdin? You’ll have to cough up cash for Disney+. And you’ll be paying Disney for the privilege of watching ESPN too. It owns that, not to mention A&E, ABC, History Channel, a big chunk of Vice, FX, and even Lifetime. As we said before, Disney now owns Hulu outright, too—AT&T sold its share last month, and Comcast agreed to relinquish its share last week.

 

Whenever a company consolidates large portions of a commodity that everyone wants, the first concern that comes to mind is cost. Streaming could get a whole lot more expensive. Remember how cheap Netflix was when it was just a dinky little add-on to the disc subscription service? But over the years it’s crept up. It’s now double the price it was five years ago. Disney, with its now enormous catalog of content (a catalog far more extensive and potentially more lucrative than Netflix’s), has already spread subscriptions across three different services, Hulu, ESPN, and soon Disney+. After it hooks you on Disney+ for $7 a month later this year, it could very easily start increasing the price. (No one at Disney has said as much to date.)

 

It’s a tactic that has served TV providers well for some time. Lure them in with introductory prices, get them addicted to the service provided, and then raise the price. Sure you could shut off the never-ending stream of Moana, but will you?

 

As irritating and expensive as Disney’s streaming monopoly will be, it’s the company’s dominance over culture that feels the most terrifying. So far this year, Disney has dominated roughly 35-percent of the American box office sales, according to Box Office Mojo. Combined with Warner Bros., that number jumps to about half of the U.S. box office.

 

Very few companies are producing a large percentage of what we watch, and as they consolidate the means of distribution via the internet, it’s beginning to feel like they’ve got too much power—it ends badly. And we know that because this isn’t the first time a few companies have controlled both the production and distribution of huge amounts of entertainment.

 

Back in the 1940s, you had a similar system, in some respects. “Basically the studios financed the movies, produced them themselves at their own companies and then they also owned some movie theaters,” Karina Longworth, a Hollywood historian and host of You Must Remember This, told me.

 

This meant they could give sweetheart distribution deals to their own theaters while gouging competitors, and it meant if you wanted to be in the business of making movies, you also probably had to be in the business of building theaters all across the United States.

 

According to Longworth, the U.S. government perceived that vertical integration of the entertainment business as a monopoly. Following a series of anti-trust actions and negotiations in the 1930s and 1940s, the studios ended up divesting themselves of their control over theaters.

 

According to Longworth, the effect wasn’t immediately felt by consumers in any kind of financial way, but it had huge ramifications for the film industry, and for the kind of voices that were prioritized in movies. “There was, for all intents and purposes, no such thing as independent film that got any kind of distribution until the 1950s.”

 

No indie film meant every single movie being made was dictated, to some degree, by a very small group of people at the very top of these studios. And while the people running studios can lift up and amplify a wide variety of voices and experiences, that’s not always practically the case. Black cinema wasn’t embraced by the big studios, nor was queer cinema. Films featuring people from other countries weren’t common. And thanks to the draconian nature of the Hays code and its enforcers (collectively working as the precursor to the frequently as awful MPAA) there was a broad swath of subject matter the big studios wouldn’t touch. You couldn’t even make a film decrying Nazism until right before the U.S. entered World War II.

 

Source

 

[TheEmpathicEar]

Disney is a huge multinational corporation getting bigger all the time. I can only hope that whatever competition is left will keep Disney+ subscriptions prices low. I also hope that if we will be able to afford multiple subscriptions if need be. 

[v3n0m]

IMO there is enough FREE legal streaming sites that I should never need pay for "TV" again. It is a funny thing how when I was young TV was free, we only had 4 channels but I swear the content was better than anything now-adays. Also TV series' made almost 50 episodes/year, not only just the 10 they make per season now! Anyways now the year is almost 2020 and free TV is back, bigger and better than ever, of course one needs an Internet connection and a streaming device., but in this day and age who doesn't already have these? (except my Mom)  

[TheEmpathicEar]

Can U elaborate on "Free" streaming?

[v3n0m]

1 hour ago, TheEmpathicEar said:

Can U elaborate on "Free" streaming?

Comet TV

Pluto TV

Tubi

Filmrise

Vudu

Crackle

Stirr

Shout TV

and so on....

 

the list is almost endless!

[steven36]

I'm aware many of the free streaming sites  it OK to watch   indie movies and things  , at my home others at my home pay for a big satellite   package  i can even sign in with it  and watch  locked stuff  but i never do .  One thing not  so bad about Disney  is on ABC  go they do unlock there shows once they get a week old to stream for free . 

 

But mostly i pirate  TV shows and movies . most movies come out before they go on sale  and most TV shows come out  by the next day,  i have way more choice  pirating than i ever will have buying it that's for sure and i can watch stuff from any country  i want with Kodi or downloading . I have 4 download mangers  and Kodi  on Linux and pay $16 every 6 months for a download service  that works in Kodi for streaming  and with my download  mangers to watch local it has has  like 50 hosters and safe  torrent to direct stream /download . So i can grab stuff from most any pirate site . Also i have many free sites that have pirated  IPTV streams .  So i never really had to use no free legit or paid  streaming sites yet lol.  When you make stuff harder to get like having to buy  more stuff then piracy becomes king again .

[TheEmpathicEar]

I get that. But, as I always say, "Accessibility and Affordability". If the MAFIAA provided their products based on this rather than greed it would go a long way. 

[DKT27]

Too many of them.

 

Funny thing is, some of their releases of decades ago are not even available legally here, hopefully the above can somehow fix it.

[TheEmpathicEar]

12 minutes ago, DKT27 said:

Too many of them.

 

Funny thing is, some of their releases of decades ago are not even available legally here, hopefully the above can somehow fix it.

If a plethora of streaming services starts to break out, does anyone think there might be some kind of "bundling"? Cable companies have been doing this with "premium" channels for years.