Disney charging each customer instead of the cable share is going to be above the money Netflix is willing to pay for all of Disney's content. All of the big players have quite a lot of content they are currently getting ready for digital streaming. Disney and HBO are already on Apple TV and others (heck Disney is there a couple of times).
Netflix doesn't have the money to scale up to their content machines before the cable money goes. They'll live if Amazon doesn't get aggressive.
Try Vudu if you want to see real dependable HD. I've had issues with Netflix "blocking up" (pixalated) while the Vudu stream is fine and the picture, in my opinion, is better than any other service out there.
ESPN is Disney. There have live TV, replays , highlights streaming online already. Adding some non sports content won't be trivial, but they aren't starting from ground zero.
What is the point of having a nice online delivery mechanism if you're required to have the cable channel to use it for the good content? I mean I like online and all, but if I already have cable and have to choose between the two, I'm picking cable.
The same argument applies to the HBO product. To me, the entire point of having an online offering is to reach more people. If you're immediately limiting your potential customer base to your existing customer base... How is that supposed to really work?
As far as the actual product goes, I have cable. I still watch ESPN on my Apple TV because the replay functionality is really nice. I don't need to pay for a DVR (or HD) to watch the teams I want to. That's pretty cool.
I don't understand why people think Disney will start their own streaming service when they never started their own cable TV company. Large public companies want to get a high return with as little capital invested as possible, which means they will always prefer licensing their IP rather than owning metal.
I know people who complain about the content Netflix has every time the subject comes up. They don't know why, or understand what licensing is (or means), or the impact of the studios and their business model.
They could buy movies on disc, and get whatever content they want, but they use Netflix more and more instead. So experience does matter.
Talk to my wife who searches around Netflix for 15 minutes looking for something to watch and then gives up. Experience can improve the likelihood that someone will use your service, but if the content isn't there, then they'll go elsewhere.
In addition Netflix has built up infrastructure to allow it to stream in high def in the first place. They are peering near ISPs in large localities to reduce bandwidth costs and improve speeds to the user.
On top of that, how often does your netflix stream stop to buffer? Almost never. They've encoded every file in almost every possible resolution and bitrate and the player seamlessly switches amongst them as the connection slows or speeds up.
Remember, it's not about streaming on your laptop, it's about your television. Forget about the browser experience.
I'm constantly in amazement of Netflix. There is so much more to them than merely acquiring or creating content. To say that Disney and TW will simply setup their own services with great ease discounts the barriers to entry that they will face, as well as the significant costs.
The whole point is that Netflix is racing to build up infrastructure and IP so that the economics of Disney starting its own streaming service instead of getting revenue by streaming on Netflix will not make sense.