Piracy is seeing a big uptick because streaming increasingly sucks. 10+ years ago before studios started chasing their own streaming platforms, and Netflix was the only game in town, it was an excellent deal. $10ish, as opposed to $50+ for cable (might be low on the cable subscription - I never had one).
If you wanted an equivalent catalog today, you'd need at least 3 or 4 streaming services, and you're paying $50+ or so. Netflix + WB (inc HBO) surely gets them back to roughly where they were. Will Netflix jack up their rates on the back of this acquisition? Inevitably, but I think they'll have a very hard time approaching a similar monthly rate. My gut says that they'll have a hard time getting beyond $30, with Disney and Youtube anchoring in the low teens. So, for the consumer, it's a win. For competing studios, of course, not so much.
You're assuming a free market working perfectly would bring the price down, but the free market is kneecapped by stupid and arbitrary licensing and IP games, which is the result desperate overreach of an industry hanging on by its fingernails as its business model has been upended multiple times over during the past 2 1/2 decades. But as we used to say about the music industry while happily napstering, your broken business model is not my problem.
If you wanted an equivalent catalog today, you'd need at least 3 or 4 streaming services, and you're paying $50+ or so. Netflix + WB (inc HBO) surely gets them back to roughly where they were. Will Netflix jack up their rates on the back of this acquisition? Inevitably, but I think they'll have a very hard time approaching a similar monthly rate. My gut says that they'll have a hard time getting beyond $30, with Disney and Youtube anchoring in the low teens. So, for the consumer, it's a win. For competing studios, of course, not so much.
You're assuming a free market working perfectly would bring the price down, but the free market is kneecapped by stupid and arbitrary licensing and IP games, which is the result desperate overreach of an industry hanging on by its fingernails as its business model has been upended multiple times over during the past 2 1/2 decades. But as we used to say about the music industry while happily napstering, your broken business model is not my problem.