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Disney+ Loses 700,000 Subscribers Following Price Increase
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A lot of people have old discs and Blu-rays lying around (or borrowed from libraries). And yeah others just pirate it. Disney actually makes most of the big budget Disney+ shows available on physical media, and you can find it on eBay etc. for cheap.
Do we know whether Disney is making more money overall?
Video streaming is typically defined by high fixed costs (not cheap to make original content) but negligible marginal cost. While one can argue that you want more viewers to serve more ads, what a company would be aiming for is to maximise profits (and in this case, profits = revenue since marginal cost is virtually zero). So having slightly fewer subscribers is negligible if you are able to make more money off each user.
At the end of the day, this may be a nothingburger, and well within Disney's financial projections. When people say "vote with your wallet", and consumers proceed to spend their money in a manner that is not in line what they projected, then they too must abide by that outcome.
Video streaming is typically defined by high fixed costs (not cheap to make original content) but negligible marginal cost. While one can argue that you want more viewers to serve more ads, what a company would be aiming for is to maximise profits (and in this case, profits = revenue since marginal cost is virtually zero). So having slightly fewer subscribers is negligible if you are able to make more money off each user.
At the end of the day, this may be a nothingburger, and well within Disney's financial projections. When people say "vote with your wallet", and consumers proceed to spend their money in a manner that is not in line what they projected, then they too must abide by that outcome.
There is zero chance libraries would be legal if they were invented today. Straight up piracy 🤣
But, yeah, good source of Blu-ray disks 👍🏻
I have lost many songs I bought on iTunes. In most cases they have simply disappeared, but some have turned up as regionally excluded long after my purchase and long (i.e., years) after I have listened to them many, many times on multiple devices.
I can only assume that the same will eventually happen with movies I’ve purchased from them too (if it hasn’t already).
I’m in the UK, maybe we have some laws stopping it from happening? Not sure but for example, I have Chicken run in my library which was removed from iTunes when the second movie came out on Netflix, removed likely due to exclusivity but it’s still available to me to watch
Disney make original content?🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Disney plagiarizes others, butchers their works and gaslight the public into believing the original is the lesser works. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White: copied from the Brothers Grimm. Lion King, a copy of Kimba the White Lion. Little Mermaid and Frozen: stolen from Hans Christian Anderson. Even Elsa is a carbon copy of Berthier (Bertie in the dub) from Sailor Moon R.
I can't place all the blame on Disney though. People, in general, are stupid. The guy who wrote some of the greatest works of Greek literature is the lesser known Homer. Doh.😩
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I’ve quit trying to watch most hockey or football games. Teams that I am nowhere near somehow have the broadcast rights in my area (although no local stations carry those teams in my region usually) and football (American style) is on so many different broadcasters that there’s always one or two games that the station carrying it is one I’ve never needed to buy in the past to watch that if I can’t find it on my local sports stations I’ve quit following that teams games. I tried all the VPN tricks and I now don’t give a damn about paying that much in money or time or research just to be jerked around with different stations week to week so once a team is not on a network I already have or one that is dirt cheap to watch I quit watching them.
Hey, now. Disney also buys things other people has successfully made, and then destroys them (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Marvel, etc). Give them some credit
capitalism is to sell at the higest price possible, not the lowest. Disney (and the others as well) have figured they can increase profits by raising prices. And it will repeat and repeat until the raised prices will not make up for the lower subscriber numbers anymore. After all, the shareholders don't really care if Disney has 10 Million or a 100 million subscribers. They take the number of subsribers that make the most profit.
Also, companies do not want to compete with each other, that's a capitalistic fairytale. They do everything to avoid it, and only do it when absolutely necessary (and forced by regulations). So yes, free (unregulated) market capitalism is the perfect and only explanation.
I agree with you, but your previous comment was so general and vague it was borderline useless. Thank you for adding the needed nuance.
Also, competing on price happens everywhere in the absence of differentiation - that is also a core part of capitalism - regardless of the fact that almost all companies would prefer to avoid it.
Yes, but I would refer to it as optimal price rather than highest price as a lower price (or lowering a price) can bring in more customers/subscribers and potentially lead to greater profits.
Not necessarily. The number of subscribers. subscriber growth, etc. can positively influence a stock price and benefit shareholders.
Netflix could get away with it, as could a few others like Prime, and maybe Disney. Personally, I'd sooner give up a streamer altogether than be strong-armed into a contract, especially for the streamers that don't have a lot that I'm interested in.
In our house, my partner pays for Netflix and Hulu, and I pay for Criterion Channel. Other than that, we will occasionally sign up for Peacock or Apple for a few months at a time for certain shows. We had Disney+ for a while, but we weren't watching it enough. Not being a huge Disney fan, I own the few Disney movies I love on physical media, and anything else we can get from the library or rent from a local video store (yes, we still have one of those!) Kanopy and Hoopla are free though the library, and are great for movies.
I own shows I regularly revisit on DVD/Blu-Ray, because it's cheaper than paying a streamer in perpetuity. And it's rare that I fall in love with new shows these days.
The problem is, Disney functionally has a monopoly on children's content-- so capitalism (competition isn't really playing out). Every time something that comes along that might start to compete with them, they just buy it up.
IMO Disney should be broken up. Then there can be actual competition, as capitalism can get to work.
There are a number of children's content providers out there besides Disney including Netflix, PBS Kids, Sesame Workshop, NBCUniversal (DreamWorks Animation Television, Universal Kids, etc.), Paramount Global (Nickelodeon, Paramount Kids, etc.) Warner Bros. Discovery (Cartoon Network, WB Animation, Boomerang, etc.), and so on.
Then there are all of the foreign companies delivering children's content in the U.S. as well as numerous original children's content providers on platforms like YouTube including some of the most subscribed to channels.
What portion of the children's content market does Disney have? You think it's enough to put them in "a monopoly that should be broken up" territory?