I used to have a Disney+ subscription. Peanut and I enjoyed watching Disney movies, whether Star Wars, the OG (and good) Marvel movies, old classic Disney movies from our childhood, yada yada.
But after months of barely watching it as the subscription price ticked up and up and up…
Not to mention the laughable effort of the vast majority of the Disney+ TV shows made me realize that they don’t deserve my money.
Despite my canceling of Disney+, I am still on their email list. And I’m apparently still on their customer list too.
Yesterday, they sent out an email letting their customers know they’re updating their subscriber agreement.
(How kind to let us know! - oh wait, I shouldn’t have even gotten this email.)
So, what’s changing in Disney+?
Or you could say, how are they planning to spit in the faces of their customers this time?
Well, here’s the full list:* They’re “allowing” people to “pause” their account. (Methinks that too many customers canceled and they think they might stick around if they had the option to pause—doubtful, but okay)
* They’re adding ads—even in their “no ads” and “ad free” subscription tiers. (Ahhhh, nothing like paying extra for something only to… watch Mickey Mouse burn that money in front of you while disregarding that you paid for it)
* They also figured it pertinent to remind their customers that they aren’t responsible for content outside of Disney+, Hulu, or ESPN+. (I have no idea why they said this, mayhap I missed something in the news?)
* They concluded by saying that these changes apply to not only Disney+, but also Hulu and ESPN+ too.
End update.
Oh boy - where do I even begin?
The biggest update here, which they prove by burying it in the second bullet (first and last bullets are more memorable because of when they occur), is that they’re adding ads.
Yes, even to subscription tiers which paid for no ads.
This is mayhap the sneakiest way to increase prices.
And it’s a laughable attempt to push the blame onto their customers, instead of taking responsibility for it themselves.
Here’s what I mean:
One of Disney+’s latest shows (I think) is The Acolyte, yet another Star Wars spin-off that nobody asked for.
We were told, by Disney’s PR team, that The Acolyte was a huge success. It accumulated 2.7 billion minutes viewed—which seems like an absurd number of minutes. Until you realize it’s actually not a lot of minutes viewed.
Y’see, it accumulated 2.7 billion minutes throughout the entire year, not the 7 or 8-week premiere (as many shows base these numbers on).
The more you look into it, the worse it gets:
For example, The Mandalorian Season 3, something I didn’t even finish because I lost interest one episode in, after loving season 1 and liking season 2—and I’m not alone in my experience of the show, received closer to 6.5b minutes.
The Book of Boba Fett, which was god-awful save the one Mandalorian episode they threw in to get it to six episodes (another example of Disney’s utter laziness and contempt for their audience), surpassed 6b minutes viewed—and almost nobody has talked about this show in a positive light.
The other recent Disney+ shows (Obi Wan, Andor, and Ahsoka) all surpassed 4b minutes viewed. I only watched Obi Wan and it was a dumpster fire that would’ve been better served as a movie, alas, it was a Disney+ show because Disney+ needs to legitimize its existence.
And all of these numbers pale in comparison to Squid Games 2, which clocked 4.6b views… within its first week!
Worst part of this all?
Disney+ didn’t have to be a failure.
They have the best back catalogue of content of any streaming service. All they had to do to rake in dough was add their entire back catalogue, create no new content, and charge $5 a month.
Instead, they tried to beat Netflix at their own game, created some of the worst television content to ever see the light of day, and now they’re doubling down on this mistake instead of realizing they fumbled the bad as badly as they did and pivoting.
In business, the customer might not always be right. In fact, the customer tends to be more wrong than right.
But holding obvious contempt for your customer base, ignoring their wishes and wallets, and berating them over and over with the same lame TV shows nobody asked for, much less watched?
Well, that should disqualify you from business.
And it does for most businesses that aren’t corporations with access to bill-yuns and BILL-YUNS of dollars from their “golden years.”
Moral of the story?
Having a baseline level of respect for your customers is a necessity (even if they aren’t always right).
Onto business:
Hit reply if you’re interested in improving your email revenue.
John
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