It's amusing to see CNN circle the wagons by shutting down CNN+ in favor of one "big tent" streaming service from the parent company.

It's as if a cable channel is not supposed to develop a strong brand. I mean, MTV did, back when it played music videos, but as part of the Viacom stable the then 65 Sumner Redstone decided unilaterally that we wouldn't be able to watch music videos anymore.

The ratings went in the toilet but who cares, Viacom is entitled to a certain number of cents per sub whether or not you watch and there is no way to accept or refuse MTV except to subscribe or not subscribe to the whole bundle.

People might think you have a brand because you have a logo but there is no benefit for the company in making the consumer believe that you stand for something because the consumer doesn't have a disaggregated choice: once you subscribe it doesn't matter if you watch or not.

It drives me nuts that people think GAME PASS from Microsoft is a good idea but I see it as "someday parents are going to be wondering why their kids aren't interested in playing video games anymore"... The answer will be that games wouldn't have been fun for twenty years and the parents just remember what it was like back when video games were fun, back when video game makers made money when they made fun games people want to buy. Once they got paid regardless, there wasn't any reason to make games fun anymore.