The Disney Thread: For Everything Concerning the House of Mouse
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GasBandit
Staff member
Anti-competitive practices and "monopoly" are two different things. I'm still right that it's not a monopoly. If anyone's moving goalposts, it's those saying "well yes LEGALLY it's not a monopoly but [everything I don't like should be illegal]."
... and I could go on for quite a while, really... that was just 5 minutes on google. General Mills has LOTS of competition in the ringed oat cereal department. Furthermore, you are again misinterpreting what it means to have a "monopoly." I don't have to have a multinational presence with equal shelf space to be considered competing. That's an unrealistic minimum threshold for defining a monopoly. If a competing product can make a profit while being sold and growing, then obviously there is not a monopoly in play. There are still choices for the consumer. Opinions on those choices may vary, but they ARE there, and are perfectly viable.
... and I could go on for quite a while, really... that was just 5 minutes on google. General Mills has LOTS of competition in the ringed oat cereal department. Furthermore, you are again misinterpreting what it means to have a "monopoly." I don't have to have a multinational presence with equal shelf space to be considered competing. That's an unrealistic minimum threshold for defining a monopoly. If a competing product can make a profit while being sold and growing, then obviously there is not a monopoly in play. There are still choices for the consumer. Opinions on those choices may vary, but they ARE there, and are perfectly viable.
... and you should really get less worked up about this sort of thing, and stop treating every disagreement as a personal crusade against your very existence. It can't be good for you.
figmentPez
Staff member
We need a *whoosh* rating.
figmentPez
Staff member
Gas, we all know there are generic oat cereals. They exist because the cereal market is fundamentally different than the streaming media market. Among other reasons it's different: grocery stores established themselves before the mass consolidation of megacorporations, people generally acknowledge the importance of food in the economy, oats are a commodity, food manufactuers aren't the only companies that own grocery stores, you can't patent an ingredient list and you certainly can't copyright a recipe. The fact that you think I was literally talking about anti-competitive behavior in the cereal industry shows my point went right over your head.
figmentPez
Staff member
Name one monopoly that has ever existed without anti-competitive business practices. Standard Oil? Ma Bell? Every single monopoly in history has come about because of anti-competitive business practices.
Also, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that monopolies only exist when a single company has successfully eliminated all other competitors. Monopolies exist when one company has undue influence over an entire industry, and things can reach that point before all other companies have been driven completely out of the industry. Standard Oil didn't control 100% of the oil in the US. Other companies were still making money off of oil. There were other phone companies besides the Bell Telephone company. It was important for the government to step in and break those monopolies up before they literally became the only company.
GasBandit
Staff member
Or rather your point fell so very hard flat on its face that it might as well have been cardboard. Websites are easy to establish. Their costs scale according to their use so the barrier to entry is low. Media is a resource limited only by creativity. There's no patents really governing media streaming (most use open standards like H.264). It's a much closer comparison than anything else - especially the other listed examples of actual monopolies.
But that doesn't make an anti-competitive practice a monopoly. It's like saying 4 wheels and a seat make a formula 1 racer. After all, you've never seen the latter without the former, right?
AT&T owned 223 of the 234 phone companies. Standard oil owned 90% of the oil refining business (both refineries and pipelines). They both were able to use their positions to prevent competing businesses from growing. Disney buying Hulu isn't even remotely in the same ballpark, though it is a step in that direction. But as I pointed out, competing with them is easy. If there's anything actually hampering new entrants, it is actually something of an oversaturation of the streaming market. People actually think there's too many of them already, and grouse at having to subscribe to more than one or two to get the content they want.
Really, we just witnessed the fall of the netflix "monopoly" and nobody's actually happy about it.
figmentPez
Staff member
Wow, you really think this is just about streaming. I give up.
If or when Disney owns Warner, Universal, 20th c Fox, and Columbia, this still won't be a monopoly because anybody can just make a movie with a smartphone these days. And you can stream it all you want!
Your messages are a little all over the place, and you seem really worked up. Maybe take a step back and remember one calming truth: it doesn't matter if people on a niche forum agree with you or not, it changes nothing in the hellscape of our reality.
... maybe it's not that calming.
So technically not monopolies either then...
A handy chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_structure#Elements_and_concerns
Never had a friend like ME!
figmentPez
Staff member
TIL that the buses used to transport Disney College Program cast members have a habit of catching on fire.
figmentPez
Staff member
Okay, I can take the joking fan theories that all Disney properties exist in one connected universe, and that somehow Star Wars and High School Musical are connected....
What I can't take is people who think that Star Wars takes place in the future. *facepalm* "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...." I understand that the time travel necessary for singing basketball student to be Luke Skywalker's ancestor is still less complicated than Kingdom Hearts, but I'm gonna insist that the need for that time travel is at least addressed. Star Wars is not about the future of humans from Earth!
What I can't take is people who think that Star Wars takes place in the future. *facepalm* "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...." I understand that the time travel necessary for singing basketball student to be Luke Skywalker's ancestor is still less complicated than Kingdom Hearts, but I'm gonna insist that the need for that time travel is at least addressed. Star Wars is not about the future of humans from Earth!
It's all Tommy Westphall's world, and we're just living in our small part of the snow globe.
What if the storyteller (C3PO) is even farther in the future, and that's the only reason that the movies open with those lines?
For others who didn't get it: https://mentalfloss.com/article/500756/tommy-westphall-theory-unified-tv-universe-explained
figmentPez
Staff member
Well, that would explain the prequel trilogy....
(Yes, I'm calling 3PO a bad storyteller; fight me!)
He's supposed to specialize in protocol, so it's not a bad take. Or, you know, switch "3PO" for "Lucas"...
(For the record, using @Hailey Knight 's GOT post about "plotters" and "pantsers", I think Lucas is a "plotter", thus why we get so much awkward dialogue and continuity issues.)
Permits filed to officially create Avengers themed land at California Adventure.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disneyland-marvel-land-20190611-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disneyland-marvel-land-20190611-story.html
figmentPez
Staff member
Disney is talking a sequel to the live action Aladdin, and it's possibly going to be the Return of Jafar.
But whyyyyyyyyyy
A phone call goes out to Chris Tucker, as another finger on the Monkey's Paw closes...
Fuck I'd watch that movie. Chris Tucker couldn't possibly play as lifeless a genie as Will Smith did.
Plot twist. Will Smith continues to play Genie.
Chris Tucker plays Jafar.
...or have Martin Lawrence play Jafar, make it a Bad Boys reunion.
--Patrick
figmentPez
Staff member
This would be a lot more fun if the Disney Now app weren't complete crap.