zlacker

>>meetpa+(OP)
Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this merger gets approved, in the current administration you never know).

From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix backend infrastructure at the very least.

>>afavou+Jd
This particular one could be ok for them? A major cost for Netflix in the modern era is licensing contracts that never adjusted to the streaming world. As such, consumers may actually get access to some backlog of WB stuff that is otherwise not worth offering?

>>taeric+Cw
"Never adjust to the streaming world" implies the studios were wrong.

Netflix is buying Warner Brothers and you think Netflix was wasting money on licensing costs?

More like Netflix's bet that if it didn't share usage information it could keep underpaying for what it was getting paid off.

>>Guvant+2a4
Licensing being a giant mess for media is not exactly news? Netflix reportedly got some really good deals early on, but of the kind that nobody was willing to do again.

They didn't have the luxury of first sale to protect their market, though. Which is a very sharp contrast to how they ran the DVD side of things.

So, it isn't that they were wasting money on licensing. Licensing kept getting more and more expensive. Not fully for nefarious reasons, but that doesn't change that it was so.

>>taeric+ac4
Licensing in media is relatively straightforward, you pay per view.

Netflix decided it didn't want to and caused the whole uproar.