this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Disney+, Hulu Merged App to Launch Next Month, Bob Iger Says::Disney will launch a beta test of an app next month that combines Disney+ and Hulu into a single experience, CEO Bob Iger said.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I worked at Disney+ until a few months ago (got laid off after 5 years, how nice of them), everything was still segmented internally. Even a year or more after the Hulu merger we still operated essentially as two separate companies. They did their thing and we did ours, practically no communication between the teams.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They should keep it separate. If Disney was smart, they’d split into two companies. The Disney brand that owns family-oriented IP, and a more adult-oriented brand that owns all the other crap. There’s no need for Disney to own ESPN for example.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It all came from the Fox deal when Disney bought everything except Fox News for 71 billion. They needed content for Disney+ that appealed to adults. Hulu has also been rolled out to other countries and is known as Star,why the name change? Zero clue.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hulu has also been rolled out to other countries and is known as Star

That explains a lot. I have been wondering WTF that was.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They may have given us an explanation for it, but I probably ignored it. Possibly something with trademarks and copyrights.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

TIL Star = Hulu. I thought it was just their more grownup-oriented channel

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

TIL.. I thought it was some low budget channel they'd bought the catalogue of

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a very reasonable point of view, but couldn't they still achieve this by creating some filter that says "family" within the Disney+ app so that they can still isolate toons and family movies and series?

However, it's also true that my experience with all these sites is that content is poorly arranged and searchable, so keeping them separate might have simplified this

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

couldn't they still achieve this by creating some filter that says "family" within the Disney+ app so that they can still isolate toons and family movies and series?

They could, they have, and so has literally every other major streaming service.

The rest of us are rightfully pissed off at the balkanization of content forcing us to pay for a hundred different subscriptions and this person is arguing that it must continue, lest easily filterable content exists on the same service 🤦

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There were some supremely dumb technical decisions made on the Disney side during that merger

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yup, they thought they were on the top of the world during COVID, and then once people got out of the house and stopped binge watching everything for days on end the revenue started falling and the investors started losing their shit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So what causes the terrible UIs on these apps? Is it all just in the name of feeling different from the others?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Probably, that and seeing how many ads they can cram in unobtrusively. I didn't work in UX I was a Linux SysAdmin/Eng

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

However this plays out, I guarantee it will involve charging more money for less content.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Let the enshitification commence!

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can the FTC break up Disney already?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

There shouldn't be any big tech breakups until the ISPs get broken up and forced to compete, they can move up from there

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And the media consolidation continues.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Normally I'd be with you on that, but Disney already owned Hulu and the main problem making streaming worse than it used to is balkanization, so unless they're gonna charge more than the combined current cost of both, I consider this a win.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

What a terrible idea.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

does this not just make disney+ like it is globally? where all the "hulu" content lives in its own section, just on ours its called Star

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

OMG the Hulu app is pure garbage why would you even want to be associated with it?!?!?!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Have you used the Disney+ app? It's a pain in the ass to find anything because there are basically no categories and nothing is alphabetical.