The FTC just needs a new law based on anti-trust that says multi billion dollar companies can't buy other billion dollar companies. Period.
Name the last time a multi-billion dollar merger worked for consumers.
Name the last time a multi-billion dollar merger worked for consumers.
Just at the surface level this hurts:
1. Other brands selling TVs in Walmart.
2. Advertisement space will be cheaper for Walmart when they advertise on their own TVs, toeing the line of anti-trust.
3. Companies that offer advertising and data aggregation across TV brands will now have fewer brands to sell on.
4. Fewer consumer TV brands in general.
5. Walmart can adopt a loss lead model, they don't need to actually make money on the TV, they can make it up in 2-3 other places. Similar to AWS and Amazon.
It’s still too recent but many are optimistic about Microsoft/Activision.
Also many bank acquisitions that prevent failure are obviously good.
> Also many bank acquisitions that prevent failure are obviously good.
We wouldn't worry about bank failure if they weren't so big in the first place?
4 were flops in the sense that their theatrical releases did not cover their budgets, but only 1 of those (Lightyear) was because audiences didn't want to see it (and so could be blamed on the creative process).
The other 3 did not cover their budgets with their theatrical releases because they didn't have domestic theater releases (other than very short runs in a handful of theaters probably to preserve eligibility for awards) and their foreign releases were in a much smaller number of countries than other Pixar movies.
Domestically, and in countries that had Disney+, they went straight to streaming.
In reverse order:
• Elemental made nearly $500 million in its theatrical run. In no universe can that be considered to be a flop.
• Turning Red did not have a domestic theatrical release, and a fairly limited foreign release. It was only in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam.
In those countries in which both Turning Red and Toy Story 4 (the last Pixar movie before COVID started tanking box office) Turning Red earned about half of what Toy Story 4 did.
If we assume that ratio would have been similar in the countries Toy Story 4 was in that did not get Turning Red (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela) we get that Turning Red should have made around $420 million.
It was the second most watched streaming film of 2022.
• Similar for Luca. It's theatrical release was Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Lithuania, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Türkiye, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates.
In those countries that had both Luca and Toy Story 4, Luca earned $39 million and Toy Story 4 earned $70 million. That extrapolates to a full theatrical release for Luca would have been around $560 million.
It was the most watched streaming film of 2021.
• Soul's theatrical release was Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia/CIS, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Montenegro, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam.
I don't have the Toy Story 4 comparison for that one, but its total foreign box office was about 2.4x that of Luca, suggesting that had it gotten a full theatrical release it would have have done quite a bit north of $600 million.
Soul's release timing made it so its peak streaming straddled the year boundary so it didn't get near top spots on yearly streaming lists but was on top of weekly or monthly lists at the end of 2020 and start of 2021.
My source was Box Office Mojo. It looks like they are only including countries where they have box office data.
Fortunately since that was where I got the Toy Story 4 data for comparison it doesn't seem like it affects the conclusions.
How was that better for consumers?
It's not like when you sell your company you actually get all your equity as cash, you are certainly still working at your company for a year or more afterwards, with performance incentive stock options based on growth...
But many times you get a significant portion, enough that many founders can simply coast and it doesn't matter.
> you are certainly still working at your company for a year or more afterwards, with performance incentive stock
The meme of founders who sell their companies to Google and just sit there and do nothing has some truth to it.
Btw - when you go public you now have a very different set of "still working at your company" set of challenges and probably far worse with much more public scrutiny. You now answer to securities analysts, shareholders, lawyers, etc.
Bitbucket is basically a non-competitor and Gitlab is focused on reaching profitability, something Github really doesn't have to worry about.
Bit more complicated due to spectrum licensing, but theres a way to make it work with more carrier options.
Meanwhile, I don't see how having more than 3 companies building cellular infrastructure helps at all. Regulated access for MVNOs seems to fill the competition niche.
Gee I wonder why Beats doesn't have a direct competitors to Airpods?