Netflix can’t be allowed to buy Warner Discovery

I can hardly describe the dread that swept over me when I read the news that Netflix might end up buying Warner Bros. Discovery , and particularly the storied film studio at its core. The barbarians were not just at the gates, but had fully broken through the walls, reached the keep, and were nearly through the door to cast aside the king and seize his lands as their own. It didn’t seem as though an ally would arrive at the last moment to turn the tide of the battle, and the barbarians’ rule would be anything but a friendly one. Photo: Unsplash/Thibault Penin To some that might sound hyperbolic. I don’t think it is. The prospect of Netflix acquiring one of the most recognizable US film studios feels not just like the culmination of the past nearly twenty years of Silicon Valley’s entry into and disruption of the film industry, but also a much longer process of the attempt to capture and commercialize culture - transforming it in the process to serve the ends of corporate tyrants rather than its essential function as a means of social enrichment. In that sense, Netflix is a problem because it’s both the product of a deeper rot in society and culture, while helping to extend its effects even further. The false promise of streaming For the past fifteen years, we’ve watched as the supposed “streaming wars” played out in front of our eyes. Tech companies moved into film and television, promising they could do it better than the old guard entertainment companies. Free to spend like drunken sailors, because investors valued them well above traditional companies and gave them free reign to lose money as they saw fit, they splashed out on prestige television and expensive auteur films to prove their bona fides, win some degree of industry support and acclaim, and get viewers on board with quality content and low prices - promising they would last forever. But that was not to be the case. The streaming model upended the economics of film and television, drying up once-lucrative licensing revenue streams while further imperiling the collective theatrical experience in favor of the even further individualized viewing at home, which even shifted from the television to a laptop or phone screen. I’m guilty of watching in those ways too - well, not on a phone screen; I’ve never done that - but that doesn’t mean I think they’re the best ways of experiencing visual culture. Why is it so hard to buy a Blu-ray?Retailers are dropping physical media as streaming dominates, and that’s a real problem When I’m watching at home, I struggle to stay focused or to avoid my phone. But when I’m in a cinema, that completely changes. I’m there for the movie, my phone stays in my pocket once it starts, and I relish having that experience with a bunch of other people - even when it means I’m in tears multiple times, as was recently the case with...

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