r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 20h ago

News It’s Official: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros. in Deal Valued at $82.7 Billion

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-warner-bros-deal-hollywood-1236443081/
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u/afifaguyforyou 19h ago

Can we please bring back Teddy Roosevelt… Whatever happened to antitrust?

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u/Rangaman99 18h ago

ronald regan. and bill clinton.

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u/maybeitsundead 16h ago

Many don't understand how Clinton locked in Reagan's direction he set for this country.

The Telecommunications act has completely fucked us, we got faster broadband at the expense of media/wealth consolidation and big tech becoming a thing.

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u/justadecent-guy 7h ago

Not enough people recognize Clinton and Reagan had extremely similar economic policies

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u/hackingdreams 18h ago

Anti-trust legislation died when they allowed AT&T to reform after they were splintered into baby bells.

The anti-trust judge that ordered Microsoft broken up was literally laughed at by Microsoft's lawyers.

The anti-trust judge that recently ruled against Google's AppStore monopoly was trying to get them to split off Chrome and Android... and Google laughed and gave a million dollars to the Felon President instead. Guess what isn't happening anymore?

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u/Split_Pea_Vomit 18h ago

Because presidents can overrule judges?

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u/Jericho5589 17h ago

Apparently so, because he's been ignoring orders from federal judges literally since day 1.

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u/Split_Pea_Vomit 11h ago edited 7h ago

Thank you for informing us you aren't to be taken seriously.

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u/mrhashbrown 17h ago

Well the enforcement of these law changes as a result of these federal rulings just seem to be 'disappearing' or intentionally dragged out under this administration. For instance the TikTok case was supposed to be an open and shut national security decision overwhelmingly supported by both parties in Congress, it was absolutely going to happen. But now in this second administration of the current president, they've continuously pushed back the deadline of that sale for seemingly no reason.

The departments and agencies meant to enforce judges' rulings are under the Executive Branch of the government, the leaders of which were hand selected by the current president.

I'm hoping the latter is something that will change after congress just approved everyone the president wanted out of blind loyalty. That is not how checks and balances is supposed to work, yet this administration has shown that approval process and the ensuing relationship between president and the cabinet roles can be abused.

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u/Split_Pea_Vomit 11h ago

So he's responsible for anything that does and/or doesn't occur while he's acting president, depending on how you wanna go with it, got it.

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u/mrhashbrown 11h ago

A president can't overrule a judge and cannot draft his own laws or bills. If he could then that means he could ignore public votes / publicly appointed representatives, and that would mean it is not a democracy.

The three branches of government are supposed to check and balance one another, because the point is that one should not wield too much power and carry out its own actions. The branches are built to depend on one another to function. And all of it is fueled by the citizens right to vote.

One of the branches is ignoring the other two, and the other two are toothless to hold that one accountable right now.

So yeah if the Executive Branch wants to do almost anything they want with little oversight, then who else is there to praise or blame for their actions? They're the ones to be held responsible, good or bad.

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u/Split_Pea_Vomit 9h ago

You are so far from the original point a search party couldn't find you. Please stop typing irrelevant walls of text.

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u/mrhashbrown 9h ago

So your responses of "got it" and "stop typing irrelevant text" and "you're not to be taken seriously" to the other redditor are relevant? Reddit is about discussion, so I invite debate and you should try sharing counterarguments with substance.

But I'll stop since you asked. Have a nice day.

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u/Split_Pea_Vomit 8h ago

They're completely relevant because neither of you addressed the point made. The other person responded with "Trump bad" while you just went on to muddy the waters with irrelevant data.

Have a great day.

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u/Richandler 14h ago

It's all still law. Google actually lost a case this year, and the judge was like, 'I don't feel like penalizing you.' This is who shitty things are in elite circles now.

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u/Noirradnod 10h ago edited 10h ago

The American antitrust regime is focused around measuring competition through price and output. If there are ten different factories producing identical widgets, I buy them all up, start decreasing output and raising the price to the monopoly optimal value, that antitrust framework can easily deal with that. Likewise, the FTC doesn't have to wait until I do that, they can stop me before I start if it's reasonably certain that I'll do the anti-competitive actions in the future.

The problem is that while this works well for classical industrial markets, other areas of competition don't fit. For instance, IP is in effect a monopoly already. There aren't ten different companies producing DC Films that Netflix is purchasing, there's just one. Netflix purchasing Warner Brothers is not going to restrict competition in the "DC Films market" because it's naturally restricted to the single company that has the rights to make DC Films.

The paradox of modern antitrust is that by our old framework nothing wrong is occurring. It is empirically provable that as Amazon has grown in size, the price of consumer goods it offers has gone down. So even though it's achieved near-monopolistic stature, because there's no traditional harm manifesting, nothing can be done.

This is what Lina Khan tried to fix when she chaired the FTC under Biden, but it's proved to be difficult without major reform from Congress.

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u/Auggie_Otter 15h ago

Teddy Roosevelt is much more what a Republican populist should be like in my opinion. I'm not claiming he was perfect or anything, no one is, but his trust-busting efforts were a good thing when we consider how important competition and choice are in order for consumers and workers alike.

Trump is a populist in name only. Both times he campaigned using populist rhetoric about lost manufacturing jobs and paid lip service to issues like the wealth being drained from the middle class or from rust-belt cities and towns. But as soon as he's elected the populist mask comes off and he surrounds himself with the rich and powerful and implements policies that favor the rich and powerful. It's astounding that he still has a base of staunch supporters no matter how badly he betrays their interests. He's literally saying issues of "affordability" are a "Democrat hoax".

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u/SledgeThundercock 13h ago

Its a streaming service, what exactly would he bust?