1. The shear volume of non-film media, particularly shows directed at kids and pre-teens, that Disney controls
2. The ability of kids to literally watch the same thing over and over again
That's literally what my family used to pay in VHS rentals. One new release and one weekly movie, three or four times a month.
Without the need for Blockbuster retail stores, that's got to cut the price in half. Being able to keep your whole back catalog in a computer rack instead of buying warehouse space in 50 different countries has to halve the costs again, surely. Account for actual material costs, factories to make the cassettes, write them, produce the cases. What are we down to now ...
$1 a month for buying 6 new movies sounds more like it.
http://www.cdncalc.com/ says it's about 34p. Suggesting it's not trivial, but ~10% of the prior cost.
Not a solid analysis but indicative IMO. Bet someone else has done all the [other] costings and probably quite rigorously?
The Disney channel is getting hurt badly by families cutting the cord. Disney streaming will be just as much about "The Mickey Mouse Club" as it is about big budget blockbusters.
I have a 2 year old. I will be wherever the Disney content is, and they could charge me basically whatever price they want.
Disney's attitude to selling to children is toxic IMO. But perhaps if you fully inhale you actually do start to get happier by just buying the latest movie franchise tie-in toy, made of cheap plastic using exploited labour?
It's not about enriching their lives, or encouraging their development by moving them away from material things...yet. Those goals come a little later.
My kid is actually 1.8, I was rounding up. He likes Moana and watches it every day. He can say ~15 words. The movie's chicken and recognizing songs he has heard before result in pure joy.
He likes to watches the Mickey Mouse club and also likes to point out the characters he recognizes. This is intellectually rewarding to him, because it is at the absolute edge of his abilities.
But I think like you. Disney is evil. When he turns 5, I will throw a brick through the TV and hand him a copy of WALDEN. For now, I'm fucked, at the mercy of a vicious corporate Mouse.
Being a human being is a social experience. If all of a kid's friends watch disney movies and have disney toys, there is an opportunity to connect with his friends. There is also the opportunity to feel excluded, to miss out on experiences and discussions with his friends. I remember quite fondly how excited me and my friends would get talking and arguing about Star Wars and Indiana Jones in the sandbox.
edit to add: not having to handle media is a big deal - dvds get scratched _very_ easily - plus being able to access the content on an old iphone or ipad wherever you are is worth its weight in gold.
Translation: I'm not a parent... or at least, I'm not a typical one
The point was that the movie library alone isn't compelling enough for me to subscribe. If the other shows are included like TFA mentioned (and not the grandparent comment) then that's different.
If Disney streams only feature film content, it will go nowhere. No parent will pay $10-$20 month to access the same 50 to 100 films over and over.