Comment by mihaic
6 hours ago
It's always great to read about how the people the own the means of distribution aquire also the means of production, trying to create a meta-monopoly. /sarcasm
I'm rooting for someone on the regulary side disliking all the crap that Netflix produces, and just shuts the whole thing down. Those 5 billion they'd have to pay for a breakup fee in that case would have me feeling better that I couldn't cancel their service, since my family pesters me to keep it.
If this goes like all the other media mergers this year, the only regulatory scrutiny will involve Netflix allowing the executive branch to install a censor / ombudsman that has final say on their news and documentary content.
There is no “monopoly” on either content distribution or creation. Amazon and Apple are both trillion dollar companies that have streaming services.
Then there is Disney, Comcast (Peacock), Paramount, STARZ (standalone company), and AMC
The legal definition of monopoly in some jurisdictions means anyone with a large enough of a market share able to influence pricing, etc in a market. A market share as low as 25% can be called a monopoly. Does HBO+Netflix have a 25% share of the streaming market? I've no idea, but possibly.
Market share matters little when most people have multiple streaming services they use simultaneously.
It’s not like Apple and Google where the majority of people either have an Android or iOS based phone.
YouTube I believe has more viewing hours than Netflix.
Technically, you're right. I feel like there needs to be new terms to describe though the staleness of the industry. "Oligopoly" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Monopoly is that word. "Pure Monopoly" is the term for the platonic ideal that people like to insist companies don't live up to and so aren't at all monopolistic.
How many competitors do you need? Apple, Disney, Netflix, Comcast, and Paramount are five major competitors.
If you as a hypothetical video content creator want to get your content distributed to a wide audience, you have five companies to go to, you can publish it to any of the video on demand services, try to monetize it through ads on YouTube, etc.
We aren’t in the 30s anymore where the only way you could see content was by going to the movie theater.
Before HBO Max was a thing, they were already selling distribution rights of content to Netflix. No one said that was a monopoly.
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IMO I think we are going to see Paramount, STARZ and AMC bought up soon. I don't think they can compete with Disney, Comcast or Netflix in size.
> IMO I think we are going to see Paramount, STARZ and AMC bought up soon.
You do know that David Ellison (Larry Ellison's son), through his Skydance Media, acquired Paramount Global (including its parent, National Amusements) in a merger completed in August 2025.
He also wanted Warner Brothers. I'm super glad that nepo baby isn't getting what he wants. He is using his daddy to talk to Trump to try stop it though: https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/media/paramount-skydances-davi...
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> would have me feeling better that I couldn't cancel their service, since my family pesters me to keep it.
Sounds like they're still creating popular content.
Netflix has had a large production studio outside Madrid for several years already.
> Netflix has had a large production studio outside Madrid for several years already.
One of several around the world. Albuquerque, Fort Monmouth (New Jersey), Shepperton (UK), etc.
Quite true thanks I was just shifting the discussion further east.