
Bob Iger Takes the Gloves Off for Disney’s Streaming Debut - casefields
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-07/inside-disney-bob-iger-on-star-wars-pixar-and-more
======
Sendotsh
I’ve heard more excitement about Disney+ from family/friends than any other
tech launch I can remember. Short of maybe the original iPhone, and maybe the
Nintendo Switch. Techies and non-techies alike are counting down the days
until it launches.

I’m generally someone who speaks with my wallet, I pay for FastMail and use
DDG rather than use Google, I go out of my way and spend more to not support
shitty companies, and I personally think Disney is among the most evil
companies out there (for their Copyright lobbying etc).. but I’m finding it
very bloody hard to resist the idea of unlimited streaming Star Wars,
Simpsons, and Disney classics for my kids.

Barring some major tech fuckups from Disney, I’m pretty sure this will be
absolutely huge.

~~~
banachtarski
Opinion: Disney content these days is absolutely awful. I'm not enjoying the
films, the shows, or anything really. They spend more time doing remakes for a
global audience (read. China), and compromise the quality of the end result.

~~~
scarface74
Well, whether it’s “awful” as far as your taste is an opinion you have every
right to have, but looking at their successes in the box office, it’s clearly
valuable. That’s all that matters.

~~~
apatters
Is it really? There are only five major studios which command 80-85% of the US
box office [1], and by extension a major share of all global box office
returns.

Five corporate boards exercise creative control over nearly all of Hollywood.

That's not much competition, and they seem to have arrived at a consensus
about what kind of content we should experience at the theater.

Who says the content is valuable? Can you prove that the cash generation value
is in the content and not the strictly regulated, consolidation-friendly
oligopoly structure which Clinton put in place for these guys in the 90s?

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_film_studio](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_film_studio)

~~~
marcinzm
Going to the theater is neither a necessity nor is it the only form of
entertainment available. As such, nothing forces people to go there so even if
there was only a single film studio the quality of films would still matter.

~~~
mark_l_watson
My wife and I just returned home from two years working in a large university
town (Urbana/Champaign) and one of the things we really enjoyed was having an
IMAX theater nearby. We went very frequently. When we returned to our home in
the mountains of Central Arizona, we stopped going out to the movies - our
local theater is OK, but not the IMAX experience.

The amount of at home entertainment with HBO, Amazon Prime, CBS Streaming (for
Star Trek), and Netflix is phenonimal. I am fine with paying for services and
just experiencing a wide sampling. It does take some self control to be
willing to stop watching series after sampling some episodes.

~~~
notfromhere
As a fellow former U-C resident, I do miss the art theater in town. A bit
rundown but definitely has its charm

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brenden2
I've mostly gone back to using torrents. Too many different services, most of
the new content sucks, and the software isn't always good. VLC always works,
and I can rewatch old shows I've downloaded as many times as I want without
having to worry about the platform revoking access.

~~~
jeromegv
The reasons to pirate shows used to be that "cable is all or nothing and cost
so much, let me pay only for what i want to watch". So now you can signup to
services for only 10$/piece instead of a $100 bundle, takes less than 5
minutes to unsubscribe and switch. And now the new reason to pirate is "there
are too many services"

This was never about availability, it was always about not paying.

~~~
rurounijones
Piracy is not about availability; it is about convenience.

Signing up to different services that are based around monthly fees and then
having to deal with those services when you might only want to binge one show
is inconvenient.

Having to deal with personal data loss / fraud when those services get hacked
is onconvenoent

Having to use multiple different apps (or even devices) for different shows is
inconvenient.

Having to be online to watch the show is inconvenient.

Pirating _can_ be more convenient than the above (see other posters fully
automated setup) and when it is, the path of least resistance wins.

~~~
friedman23
> then having to deal with those services when you might only want to binge
> one show is inconvenient

It's really less convenient than setting up a plex server buying multiple TBs
of storage and presumably dealing with all of the hassle involved in joining a
private tracker?

~~~
bikeshed
Absolutely, like no question. Once the show's been automatically downloaded
you can do whatever you want with it, and setting up Plex is a one-time-only
thing. What happens when the content you're after gets sold to someone else or
subsumed into another provider and you've got to jump to a new streaming
service with different terms and conditions and content restrictions?

Piracy is simple.

~~~
friedman23
I've dealt with a private tracker before and I know you are lying. Spending
money on netflix and amazon is simple and costs less and requires less effort
than buying everything involved in setting up a plex server.

Piracy is only simple if you are content with watching cheap rips that you
download from the pirate bay on your laptop.

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ian0
>> “I’ve probably seen each episode of The Mandalorian three times,” Iger
says. “First, to give some notes. Second, to see the rough cut and the impact
of the notes. And now, just recently, I watched all the final cuts so that I
could be blown away by how it looks.”

You see this sometimes in large B2B projects. As soon as v senior management
are involved in "tweaking" products you know you are likely screwed given
their disconnect and lack of ability for people further down to say "no". And
thats for software, cant imagine the impact it would have on something as
creative as movies/TV.

~~~
inovica
I think it depends on the culture. If you look at what Iger has done with
Disney then it could be that he can genuinely add something in a similar way
that I believe Steve Jobs added to Apple products. In some corporate culture
then yes, it could be detrimental, but from what I have read about Iger and
what he has achieved I'd say that it would be positive him being involved

~~~
whywhywhywhy
I'd consider Apple an example of exactly why this sort of input is bad for
entertainment, Tim Cook personally cancelled their first scripted show after
supposedly wasting two years making it [1].

With companies like Apple and Disney at the helm you're only going to get
milquetoast film and TV.

Not saying TV needs sex and violence to be good, but once creators are limited
through the lens of a wider production company brand, they're always going to
be limited.

Typical case of the person writing the cheque thinking they're way more
important to the creation of the work than they actually are, Disney and Apple
execs live in a world where they have convinced themselves we'd watch their
movies and at the end think "Wow, Disney/Apple did a great job on this" rather
than the director or actors.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-sex-please-were-apple-
iphone...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-sex-please-were-apple-iphone-giant-
seeks-tv-success-on-its-own-terms-1537588880)

~~~
inovica
Good points. I was referring to Steve Jobs at Apple rather than Apple itself.
Prior to him coming back and post his death the company has been ran by people
without the same vision and capability. I suspect the culture has changed at
Apple dramatically with Cook in charge and that shows in the products I feel.

------
Yoofie
Interesting. I also read an interesting article[1] by Matt Stoller where he
makes a good argument for breaking up companies like Disney for their anti-
competitive behavior.

[1]: [https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-
disn...](https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disney-part)

~~~
pengstrom
I've always been apprehensive towards corporate acquisitions. I mean, why try
to compete when you can just buy them?

~~~
kortilla
Well then another competitor will pop up. You have to still compete in some
form if you don’t have a monopoly or some form of regulatory capture.

If McDonald’s started acquiring lemonade stands the moment they opened up,
you’d start to see a lot of lemonade stands.

~~~
sbarre
Sure but that's not really good for the consumer, that's just good for
lemonade stand owners, who aren't really opening their stands to provide a
competitive service, they're just looking to cash out when McDonalds buys
them..

~~~
kortilla
Of course it’s good. Consumers get lower prices from the opening stands.
Eventually McDonald’s will need to start selling lemonade or won’t be able to
afford buying all of the stands.

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nabla9
> MoffettNathanson LLC, a media and technology investment firm, expects its
> three services to lose a combined $11 billion over the next four years, then
> finally turn a profit in 2024. And that’s if all goes according to plan.

Companies will bleed insane amount of money in the streaming war.

~~~
falcor84
I suppose it's a great time to be a creative professional in TV/film (not sure
whether that distinction even matters anymore).

~~~
stevenwoo
There's a story this week in the Los Angeles Times detailing the struggles of
assistants in the entertainment industry where a lot of professionals got
their start, mirroring the strike in the fictional Hollywoo of Bojack
Horseman's latest half season, somehow the streaming wars are pointed at for
causing worse working conditions/prolonging time as assistant. "Shorter
seasons, longer hiatuses and the increase in limited series have greatly
impacted residuals and opportunities while introducing more financial
insecurity." [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-
arts/business/story/20...](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-
arts/business/story/2019-11-02/la-et-ct-hollywood-assistants-revolt)

------
jimbob45
I remember being unbelievably hyped for Hulu when it launched in 2007. I got
into the beta and watched shows for 6 hours straight (wooo Burn Notice). As a
consumer, I was voluntarily watching commercials in exchange for being able to
see the shows I missed during the week on the internet. It seemed like a fair
1:1 trade for me because I was just watching the commercials that I would have
seen on TV anyway.

The 1:1 trade doesn't seem so balanced anymore.

------
tgv
I'm still waiting for the content. I had the free subscription, and it was
dismal, certainly for someone who doesn't like Marvel. Producing a few
chapters of a Star Wars spinoff or another "Beyond Infinity Avengers War
Universe" isn't going to bind many people.

Their streaming isn't great either. The two times we watched a movie, playback
was regularly interrupted, one of which proved impossible to continue that
same evening. And no, that never happens when watching Netflix.

------
polymath21
I find it a bit funny how many people in here think Disney sucks now. The
tech/developer crowd clearly is not their audience (which is fine). I
personally think Disney has done a good job with the Marvel acquisition by
taking some pretty unknown characters and turning them into heroes on par with
Spiderman which 10-15 years ago would be unbelievable. The Last Jedi on the
other hand I thought was meh. Leia floating through space? That's pushing it.

Anecdotally, I was just at Disneyland on a weekday recently and it was as
packed as can be, and among my friends who aren't at in tech many of them are
diehard Disney fans and are super excited for Disney+ (especially their new
show Mandalorian). Considering Disney's track record at the box office the
last 5 years I expect Disney+ to do well.

~~~
lawn
Disney did one thing well with Marvel: they kept out of it and let
Marvelstudios do their thing.

Well they almost fucked up Guardians of the Galaxy 3 with the firing of Gunn.

~~~
riffraff
I am not sure this is true. The latest Spiderman is basically Hanna Montana
with superpowers.

Compare with the previous two versions or even Spiderman: into the
spiderverse.

~~~
sangnoir
FYI: Into the Spiderverse is a Sony movie - Disney/Marvel wasn't involved.
Sony has owned Spiderman movie rights since the Tobey Maguire trilogy

~~~
riffraff
I know, I meant it's not the only way the character and movies could have been
done.

------
sbr464
This reminds me of the Blockbuster video/Netflix gloves off battle, similar
commentary. Hopefully Disney has more sucess than the current TGI Friday’s CEO
who was on the wrong side of the fight. It’s good reading if you aren’t
familiar.

------
urda
Streaming is becoming too fragmented, too many studios are "taking their ball
home" by pulling popular shows from Netflix / others just to support their
specific platform.

Meanwhile, my NAS and Plex server don't seem to mind serving up DRM free files
of mine.

~~~
edgarvaldes
How difficult it is to set up a NAS? Any decent and up to date guide out
there?

~~~
murraybhenson
A NAS, something like a Synology DS218+, is fairly easy to setup. I'm not a
sysadmin or anything like that, though I do have some experience with Linux
(2000-2005). My main OS these days is MacOS. I wouldn't want to have my 70
year old father try to set it up, but if you're on Hacker News you probably
will cope with it ok.

It's my opinion that it's more time-consuming and tricky to rip/re-encode
everything. I use MakeMKV and a few extra apps to rip/convert subtitles.
Handbrake is, seemingly, what everyone uses to convert to MP4/MKV or
whatever... and it takes a fair bit of patience to find the sweet spot of
quality, size, and compatibility.

I started ripping/converting DVDs and BluRays last year around this time and
I'm still on it. Some of that is due to the fact that I've had to go back and
re-rip stuff and some of that is due to the fact that the machine I'm using
for conversion is about 10 years old. A BR film takes about a day to a day and
a half to encode.

~~~
CedarMadness
Have you heard about Automatic Ripping Machine [1] ? It basically automates
what you're doing with MakeMKV and Handbrake, plus it will copy the entire
disc contents onto your hard drive and eject the disc, allowing you to queue
up multiple.

[1] [https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic-
rippi...](https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic-ripping-
machine/tree/v2.1_dev)

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neonate
[http://archive.is/cp7s3](http://archive.is/cp7s3)

------
disneypirate
Disney is an awful company, and I strongly disagree with their attempt to
monopolize streaming. I know lots of people will gladly fork over their money,
but this move is just making sure I'll be pirating all the the exclusive
content I can't find elsewhere

~~~
coldcode
I find it amusing that some people are fine with stealing, until it happens to
them.

------
khazhou
All CEO bios like to begin by noting how early they wake up, and how the work
out every morning at 6am _at the very latest_. I used to think this was a form
of self-aggrandizement. "I'm a powerful CEO because I have superhuman
discipline and stamina that you can't even imagine!"

Now I just wonder: am I lazy?

~~~
kristiandupont
How old are you?

I was a late riser until well into my thirties. Then suddenly something weird
happened (well, not so weird sadly -- hormones shifting, I'm sure) and I
started waking up early. Now, being up at 6am doesn't sound like some great
accomplishment to me. Staying up past midnight on the other hand, now there's
a challenge!

~~~
big_chungus
Yeah, I'm not to that age, but know plenty of people who stopped being able to
sleep past 4 AM as they aged. Honestly, it's rough to actually live; I see
nothing wrong with people trying to spin it as a positive.

~~~
ericmcer
Yeh it’s basically a choice between hating myself and thrashing around in bed
at 5:30AM, or getting up and feeling like I’m accomplishing things. Was not
something I had to force really...

------
shmerl
Too many stores with too many exclusives offered for rent only. Too bad for
them, it will only increase piracy, since those stores don't sell individual
titles, but all require paying a constant renting fee. No one is interested in
paying too many of such fees at once.

The idea of many similar stores that push exclusives could scale for
purchasing, but not for rent.

