Soooo, does that mean consumers have one less streaming service to subscribe to or would Netflix just do a price hike to make up for it?
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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Oh yes, market concentration definitely improves the user experience in the long run.
Provides more opportunities to loot the seas.
Been at it 25 yrs and still going strong.
I have been involved in that ship for a long time (I never gave up) but it is evident that the best years in series production are behind us and less competition I don't think will improve it, it doesn't matter how you look at it, stranger things is not at the level of house of cards to name two from the same platform
Probably like Disney/Hulu
They'll try a bundle deal to see if people pay for it, then if not slowly bleed shows from one service to another.
Maybe eventually combine them but they'll try to keep paying for both as long as possible
I bet it will be more like Prime where they display everything they own to tempt you, but there's an increasing number of additional subscriptions you actually need to access the content.
¿Porque no los dos?
This means the would-be buyer will pay WBD billions of dollars if the deal is not completed.
That’s critical because the biggest X factor is regulatory approval. The Trump administration will review any transaction between Netflix and WBD, and some analysts expect a political and legal battle to ensue.
We’re about to see how much Netflix wants to kiss the ring and what lines they’ll cross for Trump.
Larry Ellison also wants Warner Discovery. He's kissed the ring so much that Trump has to wash the slobber off.
So we'll see. Larry Ellison is the worst option here, even worse than media consolidation and price hikes, because Ellison wants to be the new Rupert Murdoch.
Yeah, I’m already done with Trek under the Ellison name.
I’ve cut off all these services already though, as an F U to the US threatening to annex my country, and virtually no Americans standing up against that.
Canadian or New Zealander?
This means the would-be buyer will pay WBD billions of dollars if the deal is not completed.
There was a super interesting Money Stuff (Pay Now, Merge Later) recently about this kind of acquisition structure that allows the seller to keep the money even if the deal gets blown up by antitrust. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Fuck this and fuck Zaslav
As bad as this reality is, my first thought is at least it isn't going to Larry Ellison and Paramount. Coming from Zaslov, this seems like about the same level of terrible.
I think it's actually worse.
I don't see how this doesn't lead to the removal of the HBO brand from the marketplace, and the transfer of all IP, to Netflix's algorithm driven slop machine.
Both were shitty options, this is all speculation, but something tells me that at least HBO would have survived a Comcast or Paramount acquisition, and not been converted into whatever the hell you want to call Netflix's category of entertainment.
I only hope is that this is killed by regulators, and somehow Paramount and Comcast aren't able to put together new bids.
But, I don't think that's what's going to happen.
My feeling is, it's worse if we are one step closer to effective state-controlled media, but yes, all valid points
It’s sad when this is probably the best outcome if it goes through.
Best outcome would be after the deal is final people stop using Netflix.
Not enough people give a shit for that to ever happen. Hell, my wife (as much as I love her) doesn’t care. I’ve explained and shown her how much Netflix sucks but her desire to watch crappy Korean dubs without thinking too hard about how to do so takes precedence. Never mind my mother who is too old and stubborn to ever change.
But in the very least the subscription fees aren’t coming out of my account, and that’s really all I can do.
How in the ever living fuck does Netflix have the money to buy Warner Brothers? If anything you would think it would be the other way around.
Reminds me of the time AOL bought Time-Warner...
Netflix has a market cap (valuation) of $421 billion, warner discovery is $64 billion now, but it was only ~$30 billion a couple months ago before rumours of a buyout started happening.
They both have the same revenue of $39 billion but Netflix runs at a $10 billion profit while warner runs at a $10 billion loss. That's why they're able to buy it, with warner the business is bad and they're burning money and need cash to keep them going but they're sitting on a gold mine of IP that would be valuable to another studio that's willing to cover their losses until they can turn things around.
It's more profitable to make low budget reality tv slop then risky high budget stuff that may not find an audience.
Well shit. There goes my hopes of HBO eventually getting the rights to The Witcher and doing it right.
Oh man, all that content I dont care about that will be merged with all that content I dont care about.
So what happens to DC Comics?
It becomes the sister company to… Millarworld
They should legally have to keep all their major mergers in their name. AOL-Time-Warner-Discovery-Netflix is far more representative of the nightmare times we live in.
Stop stealing jokes from Parks and Rec
Ah shit, now there's going to be a weird silent gap in the middle of the show because the joke was stolen!
Enough buyouts and the parent can have creative acronyms.
Stop letting companies consolidate.
So here is an idea:
Ban companies from buying other companies.
Period
It always ends well for a very select few, it never ends well for the consumers
That's an interesting thought. Are mergers usually bad overall? Would it be better for the assets and workers to just be lost? I do think monopolies are bad simply because of the domination of control and the loss of competition, but if X and Y are two of many companies and Y is failing, why is it bad for X to save some of the parts of Y to incorporate it into their own? Maybe there should be limitations and regulations on how much can be done and to what?
I don't even know the right questions to ask, I just thought the idea was interesting in its absoluteness, and wondered if it might be too simple to say no merging or buying at all.
There should at minimum be a requirement for one company to prove it is failing, and for the other company to have to argue how the merger is a net benefit for competition in front of a judge
Hint: there rarely is a good reason
The best way to download movies and shows is to get a VPN, I use airvpn. Install qbittorrent, enable the search function in settings. Update the search torrents, just click the update button. You can download just about anything. My Internet is very slow, especially for uploads but I wait for the share ratio to reach 3 before removing the torrent . This makes sure everybody gets a chance to download. I use alternative down&upload rates in the settings.
I use jelly fin to stream to all of my devices including TVs and tablets. We don't need Netflix
Something interesting about this, that I observed from my office desk with the ever-present CNBC broadcast I am forced to endure:
CNBC is currently platforming a lot of opposing voices to this merger. A big part of the opposition I’ve witnessed them platform is a “THIS WILL KILL THE CINEMA INDUSTRY” narrative. This argument is ridiculous to me, as HBO Max is owned by Warner-Discovery, and if you recall, they pioneered the simultaneous cinema/streaming movie release.
Additionally, the Activision-Blizzard merger was larger in every way, and yet I cannot find any negative sentiment on behalf of CNBC with regard to that merger.
ActivisionBlizzard wasn't so much of a threat to ComcastNBCUniversal as NetflixWarnerDiscoveryHBO would be.
