Netflix Faces Consumer Class Action Over $72 Billion Warner Bros Deal (reuters.com) 49
Netflix's $72 billion bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery has triggered a consumer class action claiming the merger would crush competition, erase HBO Max as a rival, and hand Netflix control over major franchises. Reuters reports: The proposed class action (PDF) was filed on Monday by a subscriber to Warner Bros-owned HBO Max who said the proposed deal threatened to reduce competition in the U.S. subscription video-on-demand market. "Netflix has demonstrated repeated willingness to raise subscription prices even while facing competition from full-scale rivals such as WBD," the lawsuit said. [...] The lawsuit said the Warner Bros deal would eliminate one of Netflix's closest rivals, HBO Max, and give Netflix control over Warner Bros marquee franchises including Harry Potter, DC Comics and Game of Thrones. On Monday, Paramount Skydance launched a $108 billion hostile bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery with an all-cash, $30-per-share offer.
Just cancel (Score:1)
Why do people feel entitled to sue businesses to make them do what they want? Just cancel your sub. A class action will fail and only enrich lawyers.
Re: Just cancel (Score:2)
That might be more difficult. In order to sue, you have to have standing. If you're not a customer, you might have difficulty clearing this hurdle.
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not being their customer is the point, they're going to fuck over everyone else in the market for short term gains.
Re: Just cancel (Score:4, Interesting)
Look, all of you in this thread should read TFS. The person who filed the suit is a subscriber to HBO Max -- not Netflix. It wouldn't make much sense for the subscriber to cancel their subscription to protest something another provider is doing.
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"Consumer" class action, which I'm sure was written and bankrolled by Jared Kushner and Ellison.
100% This (Score:5, Interesting)
For everyone's information, Kushner is bankrolling the Paramount hostile takeover deal via his private equity firm Affinity Partners, [thedailybeast.com] as well as additional investment and backings from David Ellison's dad, Larry Ellison, as well as the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. Warner Brothers Discovery has a lot of powerful media subsidiaries, most notably CNN and HBO.
I wonder if Kushner's father-in-law might have some vested interest in controlling CNN and HBO?
"Ellison said he’s had “great conversations” with Trump about Paramount’s plan for its proposed news business". [cnn.com] Yup, no conflicts of interest there.
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I don't understand this one in particular either. To me Netflix is a much better custodian than whoever has been making the business decisions around HBO/MAX/HBO MAX or whatever else they have been branded, and certainly a much better home than the now quasi-fascist Paramount conglomerate.
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Why do people feel entitled to sue businesses to make them do what they want? Just cancel your sub. A class action will fail and only enrich lawyers.
The good news is if it fails, lawyers get nothing. What damages has the class suffered? Fewer bad movies and shows? Higher costs? IF Netflix get more expensive, cancel it. It's not like you need Netflix or HBO or whatever. I get creatives' concerns, especially if Netflix moves away from theatrical releases, which can change how they get paid at the back end. Should teh class get certified, opt out. If enough people do, the action becomes worthless for the lawyers and costly since they don't get paid.
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You really, really don't get it. What the hell are you doing on /.? "Nerds" as supposed to be knowledgeable.
How would you feel if *all* "entertainment" was, say, from Disney, owning all? Now how would you feel if Ellison and the extremist Muslims in the middle east own it all?
Isn't this what we wanted? (Score:4, Funny)
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It's been 10-15 years, and people still don't really understand streaming. "There are too many services" - too many compared to what? I'd rather pay $30 a month to three of five providers for an ad-free service, each of which providing way more content than HBO or Cinemax ever did, than $100 a month to one monopoly. "It now costs more than cable did", no, you can subscribe to just what you want, and supplement it with free services like Tubi or Pluto. Also basic cable may have cost $40 in the 1990s, but it
Re: Isn't this what we wanted? (Score:2)
$40 in 1995 is equivalent to over $85 today after adjusting for inflation.
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I said "Way North", not "Slightly North".
A typical basic package, sans Internet and phone service, from a typical ISP is well over $100. And that's for something that's all ads with the exception, maybe, of C-SPAN.
Now compare that to a bundle of ad-free streaming services. I can get HBO Max, Hulu, and Disney+ as a bundle for slightly over $30. That leaves Paramount+ and Peacock I believe, which maybe adds $30 to that if you don't want the ads, and much, much cheaper if you're OK with them. No cable package
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It's been 10-15 years, and people still don't really understand streaming. "There are too many services" - too many compared to what? I'd rather pay $30 a month to three of five providers for an ad-free service, each of which providing way more content than HBO or Cinemax ever did, than $100 a month to one monopoly.
I'd rather pay $9.99 per month for what Netflix used to be before all the companies said, "I can milk these properties for more money if I create my own streaming service and cut out the middleman."
There may or may not be too many streaming services, but there are WAY too many streaming services owned by content distributors. You can't have any sort of meaningful free market among streaming providers if they're all just providing their own content. You still have competition among content providers at tha
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Re: Isn't this what we wanted? (Score:2)
It's exactly what I wanted. I expect this to be positive for me.
I've already discovered some HBO shows on Netflix that Max failed to properly push. HBO has the best catalog but a terrible app.
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I keep hearing people complain that they need 4 streaming services to get everything they want to watch. So now it's 3...
There are three things at play here. You only hear people talking about one of them.
1. Several suppliers mean several sources that you need to subscribe to. That is bad.
2. Few suppliers mean zero resistance to astronomical price rises. That has the potential to be much worse.
3. HBO historically had a focus on quality content. Netflix not just historically, but currently as a policy are focusing on forgettable "background" entertainment, or as their CEO calls it "the second screen". Netflix's corporate direc
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I keep hearing people complain that they need 4 streaming services to get everything they want to watch. So now it's 3...
There is definitely a right size for the streaming market. IMO right now there are too many services. However, I also don't want to see any single streaming provider controlling more than 40% of the market. I don't see this merger violating that.
Michelle Fendelander? (Score:4, Interesting)
So some nobody who lives in Las Vegas files this claim within days after the announcement and no one questions it? This is 100% the Ellisons finding some rube to file the claim for them.
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Sure. Gotta have standing. They found somebody out standing in their field.
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Yeah this person was just sitting around waiting for this to happen. Like most people that do this they aren't the brightest.
No...HBO Max is not a competitor. They're in the same market, but they're not a real rival.
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Even if they didn't pay this guy to do it, they'll be there to HELP this nobody stop them from media dominance. The man could have come up with this scheme expecting to get paid somehow for being useful. Certainly it's not as much of a gamble as everything else is in Vegas.
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It's called astroturfing. Fake grass roots.
Good idea (Score:3)
Tie it up in court for a few years, til Trump is out of office.
I don't subscribe to Netflix, and I hope others that do, cancel their subs.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump wants Netflix out of the picture so that his friends at Paramount can buy not just Warner Bros Discovery, but all of Warner, including CNN.
So, I don't think he wants this tied up in court until he leaves office. He wants Netflix to lose quickly.
Given this, I'm torn about whether to support Netflix here.
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It isn't just el Bunko's ties to Ellison and his sprog who owns Paramount/Skydance (the firm that fired Stephen Colbert on the ground that el Bunko ordered them to). Paramount/Skydance is backed by Jared Kushner and Gulf Arab oil money. The opportunities for el Bunko to accept "tribute" from this "deal" are nearly endless.
As always when el Bunko is involved, look for the trail of bread crumbs back to his pockets.
idiots (Score:2)
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But would we? If WB goes under and its bones get picked apart by Netflix and Paramount and whomever all that content doesn't go away, those producers get rehired, we're down a streaming service anyways, their catalog an assets are split up what did we as consumers lose out on long term? More fragmenting and siloing of content? I guess some convenience is lost but really do we lose or is most of the loss for the shareholders?
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A lot of big companies fail and get saved somehow after reorganization. It doesn't have to be sold off in parts. Bankruptcy doesn't kill off everything. The idiot in charge though seemed more like he was wanting it to die so he could make a good deal for himself. that whole renaming game was idiotic...a sign it was going to fall apart. But maybe that wasn't the plan; just sell it so he can get a great deal might have been the plan all along.
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Yeah I've heard that as well, that Zaslav was specifically put in charge just to get WB in shape for a sale, thus why he was doing so much aggressive cost cutting.
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That's not how I remember it (Score:1)
As reasonable as the hypothesis sounds, that's not the empirical data I remember. When Netflix was the first and only streaming game in town, it meant all the content was in one place. Prices were lower. The later proliferation of streaming services has not been good for consumers - they each charge the same full subscription cost despite having smaller and smaller fractions of the useful content.
Just open the catalog (Score:2)
Paramount Skydance to raise subscription prices... (Score:2)
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This is common dirty business tactics by the hostile takeover firms in hopes of torpedoing the already-agreed-upon M&A deal involving their business interests (in this case, WBD). Just watch any episodes of Suits (that TV drama about corporate law firms) and you'll quickly understand that there's no bar too low for corporate hostilities. (The show is dram
Ah, the smell of astroturf (Score:2)
Freshly mowed astroturf, at that. The fact is, Netflix was better - infinitely better - when it was the de jure monopolist in the streaming video market, because you could actually find what you wanted inside a single subscription. Everybody over a certain age remembers being able to find first-tier content on Netflix back when the studios considered streaming to be a rounding error. These days, practically everything on Netflix is Temu content (sorry we don't have Superman, would you like to watch our excl
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Is there a difference? (Score:2)
If Netflix buys them or Skydance buys them, the end result is the reduction in competition. TBH though, the ownership of Skydance makes me feel that way is a slightly worse option. But there is no existing media company that WBD could merge with that wouldn't reduce competition. Netflix, Skydance, Disney, Amazon, Comcast... all bad options.
Who cares! (Score:2)