Great for shareholders, terrible for consumers. This is what we get when we allow rampant consolidation and throw out the idea of regulated competition.
It's not like there's really any competition anyway. Prices are going up, I can't switch from Netflix to HBO, because the content is available across platforms.
If Netflix just moves the HBO content to Netflix then that's one subscription less for a lot of people, so even if Netflix subscription goes up, many will still save money.
There is more competition than ever. That is why these legacy companies are being bought and sold.
Amazon/Apple/Comcast/Disney/Netflix/Oracle are all in the business of selling video, plus they are competing for attention with Youtube/Tiktok/Reddit/HN/etc.
There is also Sony and Lionsgate and A24 not selling direct to customers.
