Comment by JeremyNT
6 hours ago
Is it actually worse than the status quo though? I'm not so sure.
I hate this era of consolidation but Warner and HBO have already degraded, so this may be the least bad outcome here.
6 hours ago
Is it actually worse than the status quo though? I'm not so sure.
I hate this era of consolidation but Warner and HBO have already degraded, so this may be the least bad outcome here.
I don't want you to think I'm picking on you; but, I've been thinking about the MBA-bullshittism "consolidation" for a while. It's really a euphemism for "trust formation", right? It seems like we fought tooth-and-nail just 100 years ago to set up real antitrust laws, with real teeth... and now every industry is "consolidated". What's going on in health and seed and cars makes me seethe.
If you want some considered thoughts on consolidation and antitrust implications, Cory Doctorow's writings are interesting. Some relevant examples:
"Hate the player AND the game (10 Sep 2025)" https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/10/say-their-names/#object-p...
"The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street (14 Aug 2024)" https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/14/the-price-is-wright/#enfo...
"End of the line for Reaganomics (13 Aug 2021)" https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down
"10 Oct 2022 Antitrust is – and always has been – about fairness" https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/10/play-fair/#bedoya
And his archives for more:
https://pluralistic.net/tag/monopoly/
https://pluralistic.net/tag/antitrust/
The laws only exist if people are willing to apply them.
Warner Bros has had their best summer in years (Sinners, Superman, etc). HBO still makes highly regarded prestige TV series (The Last Of Us, Task, etc). This is just false.
Yeah, HBO has moved decidedly down market.
Apple is at least trying to fill their old niche. It seems quite telling that the only company truing to do the whole “prestige TV” thing is a kind of side-project for a hardware company. At least nobody can buy them, though.
> Apple
do we really want big tech to also control our media?
> want
I described what is happening, not what I want to have happen.
Anyway it is entertainment media, not news media, so less of a big deal. But yeah it would be nice if somebody else tried.