So the author instead wants everything to go through Netflix and Spotify? Why would Disney care? Their product practically prints money for them. Unlike Netflix, Disney doesn't need to constantly make fresh content for new subscribers. It makes business sense to just park it into a service and let the money roll in. That's what they do with their "vault." The real question will be how much it costs for a subscription.
People are honestly okay with fragmentation. It's the cost they mind. But even then families are 100% shelling out for that sweet sweet Disney content.
But people aren't gonna pay $10 or even $5 every month for a disney-only streaming subscription, if disney doesn't put out new content for it. It's way cheaper to just buy your favorite disney shows & movies. Disney is more established in producing fresh content for their subscribers - cause they're a studio - but that's a different question.
That doesn't even count Marvel, and LucasFilm, etc, etc. That's more than 1 feature film released every month, and then all the TV content... $5 a month wouldn't be unreasonable, especially if you have kids.
I don't think that's true, I bet at Disney's size and the sheer number of franchises they own they could continue to just put out movies and shows at the same rate they do now and keep them exclusive to the the Disney service. Their back catalog is enormous- we're talking Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar all under the same umbrella as the Lion King. If any company could go at it alone on the strength of their portfolio it's Disney.
I thought this at first too, but the viewing habits of children are different. Some kids literally watch the same thing every day, for weeks or months. The convenience of being able to give them the iPad to calm them down at dinner with their favorite movie is probably worth $15 or so per month to plenty of families. Sure you can pirate it for free, but you're really paying for convenience. Piracy is a service problem, and right now playing DVDs isn't the best experience available.
But Disney do produce a lot of content all the time. Enough that they have several TV-channels that arguably cost more than Netflix to get access to. And this is just for the cartoon kids stuff.
People are honestly okay with fragmentation. It's the cost they mind. But even then families are 100% shelling out for that sweet sweet Disney content.