People pay for the horrib
le "movie" channel HBO simply for episodic shows like Game of Thrones.
And how many people simply torrent episodes of GoT instead of subscribing? The answer is: More than any other show.... *ever*. And that doesn't include the number of people who share log-in information. A lot of people already have netflix. Having Disney on there helps justify it, and Disney gets paid a pretty penny by Netflix in order to have that catalog. Fast forward to 2019 (which is INCREDIBLY late in the streaming game). Now your telling me I need to pay another $10-$20 per month just for marvel, star wars, and disney/pixar movies? Hmmm. With 1 star wars movie per year, about 3 marvel movies per year, and 2-3 Disney animated movies per year, I could buy and own the blurays of every single on eof those movies for the same cost as subscribing to a $10 service and for half the cost of subscribing to a $20 service.
Or, I could do what hundreds of thousands of others do, and simply download those movies and not give Disney a dime. See, before, at least they were getting paid by Netflix to host their content. Now it's all or nothing.
And they aren't the first and won't be the last to think they can start their own streaming service. As cable subscribers flee, it seems every network things they can spin up their own app. So instead of slipping over to your netflix app to watch a majority of your content, while maybe having a backup app like HBO Go or
Amazon prime for extra content - you now have a list of a dozen apps each for it's own content. Want to switch from Disney to Netflix? Quit. Apps. Launch Netflix. Wait for it to sign in. Choose show. Oops, forgot that Westworld season 3 is only on HBO Go right now and not Netflix yet? Repeat process. Want to catch up on the latest ESPN? Time to switch to the ESPN app. Want to watch some old wrestling? Time to go to the WWE app. Want to see whats going on with the latest politics? Better go launch your CNN/Fox/MSNBC app (choose your poison, because they'll all be different apps). And don't forget that FX, AMC, A&E, and every other channel with one flagship show will want to jump on the bandwagon. Want Walking Dead? Pay us $10 a month. Like American Horror Story? $10 a month please. You get the point. People aren't going to pay for a dozen, or even half a dozen, individual $10-$15-$20 apps that all have very specific content slices. At that point, they could simply order cable and have access to loads of non-specialized content.
Disney would be better off acquiring an existing streaming service and using it to push their content as opposed to trying to spin up an entirely new one.
Firstly I'm thrilled that Star Wars and Marvel won't be staying on Netflix. If I was Disney I would be as protective as I could be with my content and only show it on my own service.
This is nonsensical. Protective over your content at the expense of people actually paying for it? Why would anyone be thrilled that they have to jump through extra hoops or pay extra money to access content? Even from a completely "pro-capitalism Disney" perspective, in order to break even Disney needs at least 32 million subscribers (Screenrant,
http://screenrant.com/disney-streaming-service-subscribers-success/)
That's one third of netflix's current base, and netflix offers a LOT of content across a very wide variety of topics and interests. They spent 6 billion this year alone on acquiring content for their service. Just putting up old disney shows and movies while adding the ones that just hit dvd/bluray simply isn't going to be enough to command the same price point as a service that offers thousands of hours of content. Nor will it be enough to convince 32 million people to double their monthly streaming costs. It's much easier to just buy the disc, or torrent the content, or wait for this to die and have the content all come flooding back to established platforms.
So while your happy they are "protecting their content", your ignoring the fact they are hurting themselves in the process.
It would partly depend on the price point. Netflix works for us as it is $10 and has some classics, bunch of kids stuff and the new content ... if Disney is only old things not sure I would pay $10/month for it
The diehards will pay just about anything for disney content. The problem is, there aren't 32 million diehards. I'd guess there are less than 100 thousand. So that leaves 31.9 million people Disney has to convince to pony up.
