It's the other way around. It's the haters who want to make everything an example of how Apple is supposedly failing, with the never-ending torrent of "Apple is doomed because it isn't doing X" posts.
Remember how people claimed that Apple Music was doomed because it could never compete with Spotify? Now, it has more paid subscribers in the US.
Two can play that game.
Streaming music and TV have gone different ways. I can stream nearly every song I want from both Spotify and Apple Music. They are kind of interchangeable. I can choose between both these services based on the interface or the features. The content is very similar, give or take a few exceptions. So, I do not need to have both. This also means that Spotify subscribers can easily move to Apple Music if it offers better value, features or interface.
With TV, streaming services are moving in another direction. They are all in a race to offer exclusive content. It means that, to have it all, you need to subscribe to all these services. But the content does not even exist yet; it is being created and beefed up at this very moment. They are all competing to offer future content. And some consumers are already worried about how they can afford buying all this content that they do not need, they never had, they will not have time to watch, and they do not even know how good it is, because it simply does not exist yet.
The only streaming service that has impressed me so far is Disney+.
Netflix used to be a good deal, but now it is only losing property (as other studios claim back their own to protect themselves and their own services), rushing to put out new content which is not necessarily attractive, and raising its prices in the process. I have watched a few of the new Netflix shows, and some are OK or good but quite generic and replaceable.
Apple showed off a bunch of big names, but no real thing. Apple announced some series that sounded really unattractive to me at this point. It has a lot of money to make a great subscription service, but, at least in my impression, the announcements have been missteps so far. There are some people anticipating Apple TV+. But, honestly, if any company other than Apple had made the same announcement, would it still get the same amount of excitement? I doubt it.
Disney+ has a lot of familiar content. The back catalog is high quality and significant. Disney animated classics. Pixar. Marvel. Star Wars. And now Fox. Almost 100 years of content produced beefed up by recent acquisitions. And new series and movies based on well-known properties. All of this with the perceived quality of a company that set standards for years. Apple may have more cash, but Disney is the real big player here, and the one that will be hard to beat.
The question is, how many subscription services will users be willing to pay for? And the other is, how many subscribers are needed for a subscription service be profitable? Is there room for Disney, Netflix, Apple TV, HBO, Amazon, and everyone else?
I will have one or two, as I will not have time for more. Occasionally, I may subscribe one for a month or so to watch some series. Disney+ is the top one for me now, and, unless it screws up big, I will certainly subscribe for that one. The others will still have to convince me.