> And Netflix has 13,000 employees, while Disney has 233,000.

And Disney is significantly more than just a single streaming service struggling to get content.

Their Direct-to-Consumer business (aka Netflix equivalent) posted a net profit increase 9.5x year on year (from 143 million to 1.3 billion) and has more than half the number of Netflix subscribers (196 million vs. 300+ million) in significantly shorter time than Netflix. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/the-walt-disney-company-rep...

Operating profit, not net profit. Net income (or profit or earnings) can only be calculated for the whole business.

> has more than half the number of Netflix subscribers (196 million vs. 300+ million) in significantly shorter time than Netflix.

I don’t find this impressive. Streaming has been the future for over a decade, and Disney has long had more, and more popular content than Netflix. So why is it taking them so long to catch up to Netflix? They should have surpassed Netflix a long time ago.

Disney even sells sports.

> Streaming has been the future for over a decade, and Disney has long had more, and more popular content than Netflix. So why is it taking them so long to catch up to Netflix?

Netflix started streaming 18 years ago. Disney+ appeared 6 years ago, and Disney didn't acquire Hulu (as part of 20th Century Fox) until 2019. Also, Disney+ appeared in the era of multiple streaming services, and IIRC didn't pull their content from Netflix until sometime after they launched Disney+. Netflix also didn't lose content from other big content distributors like WB until later.

To compare: in near-absence of any competition it took Netflix until 2021 (10 years) to reach 200 million subscribers. There's Hulu that was launched in 2007, but they were nearly absent outside of the US.

So Disney has streaming competition on all fronts, has gone through price increases etc., and still grows their streaming service.

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Netflix buying WB is not really a desperation move, but it is a question of survival. Netflix has very little content of its own, and has trouble licensing relevant content from studios that are now its direct rivals: Disney, WB, Paramount etc.

They were all happily presented on Netflix, and then pulled nearly all their content to launch their own streaming platforms.

Netflix has survived by dumping enormous amounts of money into producing their own content, and licensing foreign content. But that is clearly not enough to maintain momentum, or to keep subscribers interested in the service. With WB they get their hands on a lot of IP that they can inject back into the service.