Remember Disney+ isn't completely new software, Disney acquired MLBtv aka BAMtech to run the site. And their business is live streaming, not "merely" VoD.

BAMtech was spun out of MLB Advanced Media, has been doing streaming since 2002. If you could choose anybody to rely on to launch D+ they’re at the top of the list.

Ya, I don't have too much in terms of insidery baseball. But I did have some colleagues at MLB in nyc. I recall it was pretty much a Java shop. With Akami providing extensive CDN support.

If one is interested in rolling one's own clone of Netflix. there isn't really a tutorial or course to watch to learn how its done. And there very much should be.

The closest you can get is probably Dave Hahn's Day in the Life of a Netflix Engineer series from AWS re:Invent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_D1G42G0dE

BAMTech has had high volume days, obviously, but on reflection I couldn't think of any service launch they powered that'd be bigger than this. WWE, HBO relaunch, NHL, MLB -- none seem likely to generate as much demand as this.

Disney also operates Hulu.

I thought they were a partial investor/owner, not an operator.

They are the operator and majority shareholder, and have agreed to purchase the rest of the shares from Comcast by 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/14/media/disney-buys-comcast-hul....

Ah that explains it. they must have put their UI/UX people in charge of infra

Anyone with even a casual understanding of video delivery technology and/or any kind of sketchy, high-level awareness of some of Netflix's largest engineering efforts would've seen this coming. The question is where the engineer's "lolwut" gets transmuted into "Of course Mr. Iger" by that Good Ol' Disney Magic, and why the top executives weren't savvy enough to root that pixie out before it led to public humiliation representing a loss of consumer trust and a serious starting blow to Disney's play to nuke Netflix from orbit, which is probably more important than most people realize, as home ESPN subscriptions represent a huge double-digit percentage of WDC's earnings (which, of course, have been plummeting as more people cut the cord).

Maybe Disney would be better off allowing Netflix to handle all these intricacies and just accepting that they're just going to have to let that $9 per month go to someone else.