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Netflix was several years into making its own originals, and its success was obvious to most.
These days, Ball spends a lot of time thinking about another big tech development the metaverse.
But in between stops on his book tour, Ball made the time to talk to us.
In 2016 you published a pieceessentially predictingwhat would become Disney+.
What was going on in the industry when you wrote that article?
There was no bottom.
Meanwhile, they had started to transform their entertainment ecosystems into recurring products.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe was several years old at the time.
It was still scaling to two and then three films per year.
And at that same time, they had launched a service calledDisney Lifein the U.K. and another few territories.
So I had made the observation that you could see where the industry was going at the time.
So there was a lot of movement toward streaming well before D+ finally launched.
There were individuals, typically the younger cohorts, that very much believed that streaming was the future.
What everyone was trying to do was to time it perfectly.
Every conversation inside a big media company was the same.
The debate was around timing.
Do you buy the conventional wisdom that this was a mistake?I think it was an understandable mistake.
I think the greater strategic error was how long they waited to actually launch a streaming service.
And I think this is actually an incident in which the entire industry collectively harmed itself.
Thats because we had, in a matter of weeks, Apple TV+ then Disney+ launch.
That I think was the biggest strategic error.
Had any one of these companies launched, I think, a year or two earlier?
I think wed have a very different landscape today.
In other words, Disney+ isnt going to be for everybody.
And thats not just because its expensive and the margins are thin.
Its not just because thats not the bread and butter of Disney+.
And Disney+ is not optional for them.
I dont just mean referencing his famous1957 diagram of the Walt Disney Company flywheel.
The very firstSnow Whitewas a remarkable achievement in animation, certainly.
It wassimulcastacross multiple radio networks in the United States.
The success with that program actually inspired the creation of Disneyland, 20 years later.
Disney has spent a hundred years imagining its stories as bringing fantasy and escapism to the everyday American.
Its not stuck to the laws of physics.
It doesnt close at 10 p.m. Its available to every person globally.
These are never going to mean that the park experience as we know it goes away.
But it can certainly offer things that the parks cant today, and certainly to more people.
How that intersects with the products that we know and love today, Disney+ included thats not yet known.
But were starting to see that.
Lets zoom out a little.
We can see that now.
We were optimistic about how profitable they will be.
And so this question of who is going to survive is important.
But being in third or fourth in streaming makes a heck of a difference.
And if youre eighth, youre probably not long for this world.
They have more thandoubled their pricesince they launched a price increase.
Marvel Studios is not on fire as it used to be.
TheStar Warsfranchise has not had a motion picture for five years and feels weak on the television side.
And Pixar, thoughrecently revived, went through its hardest period in a quarter-century.
But for other brands, which Ill not call out individually, it was a harder sell.
But Disney was the exception.
Iwouldlike a Disney service.
Because I trust the brand.
I trust the quality.
I like navigating its interface through characters rather than just genres.
And so I think that that theory has been born out pretty cohesively and clearly.
