Why Disney+ is Drowning
By: Jordan Fraser
Tags: Movies, Disney, Business, Money, Streaming

Why Disney+ is Drowning

The Disney community will not be ignored

Photo: Disney.com

Disney’s long heralded streaming service has been live for a few months now, and things may not be going so smoothly.

In the beginning, the service was plagued with bugs. Fans were unable to skip TV show episodes, or even play a lot of them. The frame rate was questionable, and entire movies were just missing.

Well, that last problem hasn’t been solved yet.

A lot of movies and TV series haven’t been uploaded to Disney+ yet, and there’s a lot of reasons why.

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The marketing department and their big damn mouths

Disney didn’t help themselves out by marketing this streaming service as the one place to find all your favourite Disney properties, and Disney fans are not messing around.

Like Apple fans, Disney fans are extreme. Money is no object to these fans, what they want is access. They want to throw money at the company and be given all the access they desire.

After years of dealing with the “Disney Vault”, an artificial way for Disney to hold films back for 10 years to create false scarcity, the fans have now been told they’re living in a free-for-all.

“Howdie fellow kids, for years we only drip-fed you your nostalgia. Now the vault is wide open and you can feast until your hearts content! Go wild!”

So why are we still being restricted? And why is so much content missing? Let’s start with Disney’s reason.

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“Our contracts haven’t run out you guys!”

Over the years, Disney’s film and TV properties have been licensed out to just about every streaming service available. From the popular ones like Netflix and Hulu (which Disney owns a large stake in), to the forgotten ones like Yahoo and Blockbuster.

Disney claims that the licences aren’t up on many of the films being hosted by competing services, and they have to wait for those contracts to expire like good little capitalists.

I am personally extremely doubtful about the legitimacy of that reason.

My doubts stem from the fact that since Disney bought 20th Century Fox, they now control most of Hollywood. I’ve found over the course of being alive that negotiations aren’t really about two people sitting in a room and talking on equal footing. In reality, negotiations mostly consist of powerful people telling a powerless person what to do and where to sign.

I think the real reasons are probably a lot more.. bottom-line friendly.

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You’ll eat it all

Real Disney fans are incredible marathon movie watchers.

A Disney fan thinks nothing of committing an entire weekend to marathoning every Pixar movie back to back, before having a deep conversation and debating about every single one.

If every movie were live on the site since November, most people would be done by now.

Then once they’d finish they’d rightly ask… Now what?

After asking that fateful question, Disney would be forced to either quickly create more content, or start adding non-Disney content to the site to tide people over.

The way it’s set up now, they’re giving us dates and hoping we’ll just be excited to wait.

“Hang tight everyone! Mighty Ducks is coming in July 2020! Then get pumped because it’s two sequels are coming in 2021! We’re going to spend the next 1.5 years remastering them and thaaaaaaaat’s why it takes so long you guys!”

After reading this, I know there are lots of people thinking,

“What a tool, there are more than 600 titles on Disney+, there’s no way anyone can get through that.”

And to that person, I think you’re adorable.. but you clearly haven’t ever met true fandom.

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Not my timing

Perhaps the most obvious reason of all for delayed properties is Disney’s desire to line everything up perfectly.

Back in the old days, movies use to come out of the vault for special occasions.

Imagine that it’s about to be the 10th anniversary of Beauty and the Beast… What a coincidence! Beauty and the Beast is coming out of the vault, buy it quickly you guys!

All year long, Disney constantly announces anniversaries, celebrations, and special events. They also unveil new parks, new merchandise, and new attractions at existing parks.

By lining up a Disney+ movie release with the opening of a ride at Disneyland, they can bring exposure to both and generate more revenue in multiple company sectors.

“Hey everyone! A Zootopia themed land is opening at Shanghai Disneyland soon! Check out the film ‘Zootopia’ when it drops on Disney+ on the same day! And while you’re at it, grab an Officer Hops plushie at your nearest Disney Store for one day only!”

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Netflixing

It’s not easy for companies to compete with Netflix, many have tried and many more will continue to try.

Disney is at an enormous disadvantage because they can’t upload films made by any other company without ruining their schtick. They also can’t upload any of the many films they’ve made that’ve been given an R rating (which knocks out a surprising amount).

All they’ve got is their massive back catalogue and those owned by the companies they’ve bought out.

So they’re going to scheme and they’re going to plot, and we’re going to keep whining and complaining. But in the end we’re going to give them our money, because that’s capitalism.

The only way for the consumer to protest is to cut off the supply of money. I do believe Disney will eventually pivot their current strategy, but they’ve got no incentive to do it quickly while the money is still rolling in.

Protest with your dollar, it’s the only way that makes a difference. Then go and marathon every Pixar movie in order of release.