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Comment by Reedx | Hacker News Reader

It's going to be very interesting when Disney rolls out their service. They could really do some damage to Netflix (and Amazon Video).

For those with kids, it's a no brainer. Millions of subscriptions right off the bat.

Then imagine if Disney puts Star Wars exclusively on their service, same day or even before theaters. Millions more subscriptions. They could do this with all things Pixar, Marvel and other big Disney IP...

Now add on the merchandise. They'll have better data on exactly what people are watching, how many times they're watching it and can create offers based on that. The merchandising side is a huge advantage.

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I highly doubt Disney is going to release one of their most flagship titles online before or same day as theaters. That would just be cutting into their own bottom line, makes no sense.

I'm starting to get a little worried about all of this vertical integration in the streaming industry. It would be nice if there were just 2 or 3 streaming-only services, preferably with heavily overlapping libraries, that licensed content from content producers. The way it's going, it looks like you're going to have start paying $50-60/month (Disney, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, HBO) just to have access to all your favorite shows... which is pretty much the reason people ditched cable. At least it's on demand now, I guess

But you can wait until the season is over, subscribe for one month and binge. 10-13 episodes for $10.

The irony is that pirating is getting way better now because of this fragmentation (it was going downhill for a while). Plex is damn amazing. The fact that you can share with your friends means that even a person with a modest social network will have access to gobs of content, and it will likely be the most popular stuff.

That's how it was always going to end up. You can't reduce the money going into TV from ~$60 a customer to $10 a customer and expect the same content quality.

Netflix had a relatively brief moment in the sun where they could buy lots of content cheap because streaming was add on revenue to the production companies. That's not going to keep happening for much longer.

IMHO, I think we will end up back to a cable like situation. It doesn't make sense to pay two middlemen for access to content. In other words, I don't want to pay Comcast and Netflix to deliver Disney's content. Eventually, we will end up with ISPs providing access to a handful of streaming services each with their own exclusive content.

Packages will also come back because they make economic sense. Ultimately, the NBA, NFL, MLB, NCAA, et al will get more money from a streaming sports package than trying to sell individual streaming services.

The release of the Disney alternative will be interesting. I haven't read what their plans on but they have always used the "vault" technique [0] for their classic movies (ex. You can only buy Cinderella from retail at certain times). I wonder if they will do away with this technique and simply make those classics available all the time.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault

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