I thought
this blog post from Disney Tourist Blog was really interesting on the topic. The final paragraph:
Ultimately, that leaves us exactly where we were upon the announcement of this news: confused. This move is a lose-lose for both guests and Disney. (There are two big winners: struggling local small businesses and Universal; it’s highly unlikely that helping those parties is Disney’s motivation.) There’s no making sense of it. This could be a shortsighted move made with the tunnel vision of direct cost savings, but we don’t have that low of an opinion of Disney’s leadership. They make dubious decisions from time to time, but this would be next level. Which is why we hope/suspect there’s still another shoe to drop here.
Also, I have no idea if there's anything to this, but one of the comments on that post said this:
I can think of a few reasons, however, why Disney might be making this announcement with no promised replacement (at least for now).
1. Termination Notification Date: Many long-term service contracts have clauses requiring the party receiving the services to notify the provider that they don’t intend to renew their contract. Oftentimes the deadlines for these termination notices can be a year or more in advance of the end of the contract.
2. ROFO (Right of First Offer Clause): It’s also common to see ROFO clauses in these contracts, which would allow Mears to match or slightly improve any offer Disney might receive from a competitor if Disney tried to switch ME over to another bus company.
3. Non-Compete Clause: Although less common (and also less likely that Disney would provide its own fully-owned and operated bus service), it’s still possible that there is a non-compete clause in the ME contract that would prevent Disney from starting its own ME replacement for a certain amount of time (1-2 years or so) after any termination of its contract with Mears.
4. DVC Issues: With 2022 bookings soon opening for DVC members, Disney probably wants to at least provide notice that unless something changes, ME will not be offered starting in 2022. It’s far easier to add a new service to existing bookings than it is to take it away.
5. Negotiation Tactic: It’s likely this is a negotiation tactic. It would be fairly devastating for Mears to lose this contract with Disney since they probably have way more busses than they need if they are no longer providing ME. Sure, there will still be a market for their services from MCO to WDW, but a lot more people would switch back to ride-share/cab or renting a car instead of using whatever non-ME replacement ME offers. If Disney had to provide advance notice that they were not renewing and Mears hadn’t budged in negotiations to their liking, it would make sense for Disney to send the notice anyways and make it clear they were willing to end ME unless the terms change more to their liking. By taking the public hit and announcing the end of ME now, Disney is putting pressure on Mears to come back to the negotiating table or risk losing the valuable ME contract.
I hope there is more to the story - as speculated above, for example, that Disney is taking a hit now to get out of a non-compete clause or something like that.