Yeah. I get the impression they're the least invested in streaming out of the five.

No, I meant Disney would likely absorb other companies when their streaming services fail. Disney is probably too big to fail even if Disney+ bombed, which as far as I know isn't the case. Paramount and Warner Brothers are probably more vulnerable out of the big five studios right now. But it's probably more eclectic services that are really at risk. That said, we're already seeing consequences of these mergers as Warner Brothers purged content in order to save money, including effectively finished films and already completed, recent television shows. Purchasing Discovery was already a move towards more reality TV-based content too.

It's still very US-centric, yes. But consider that at one time even with a streaming service devoted to it, at one time you needed an active cable TV subscription in order to legally watch HBO and Game of Thrones specifically. Making your primary audience jump through hoops just to watch your service meant it was getting pirated a lot in those same markets.

I think people were fine back when Netflix was really the only meaningful option.

The divisions now are largely along content owner lines, which is a mostly arbitrary division of content to an end user. I'm reminded of a credit card I had that gave bonus points for Sony Pictures films. But most people don't pick what films they watch just by what studio produced them. So a collection of TV shows chosen that way is often a weird starting point. Especially when they all expect a monthly fee on par with Netflix.

It did, however, shrink, as there was actually reasonable access to content for a short while before all the IP owners got the brilliant idea to all spin up their own streaming services.

This'll likely lead to consumers abandoning certain services as the reason to stay subscribed diminishes. Which in turn will likely lead to some of them collapsing (and quite possibly getting pac-manned and absorbed by a larger media conglomerate, like Disney.)

Which probably won't do much good for driving new content, since a handful of streaming services all owned by gigantic media companies might just rely on their existing IP and a diminishing pool of alternatives to coast on.

> Is it cheaper to own cable at this point?

It likely depends on how many services you pay for and whether you couldn't bundle cable TV with your internet (assuming they're your internet provider too.) But in practice they love to obfuscate the costs and even the cheapest TV packages are probably time limited deals at best, and likely making up the difference anyway through fees and the like.