Sound Off: Debate Between two Students about a Topic (the Launch of Disney+)

Disney’s $7-per-month streaming service, Disney Plus, launched on November 12th in the USA, Canada, and the Netherlands. Despite widespread technical problems and service outages, the service registered more than 10 million users signed up in a little more than one day. Designed as the exclusive streaming service for Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s own studios, the Disney Plus library has more than 500 films and 7,500 episodes of television. Although the service is not yet available in Ireland, many of our members have strong opinions about it. In this week’s installment of Sound Off, we have third year student Molly Malone to discuss the pros of Disney Plus and third year student Kevin Fisher to discuss the cons of the service.

Molly Malone: as modern consumers, we want options. I believe that the entrance of Disney to the digital streaming service market represents more diversity in the market. I must admit, I am a little biased. I love Disney. Star Wars is my favorite fictional series EVER. I love that now, all Disney-related and Disney-owned media can be found in one place. And, it’s cheaper than Netflix. This is great, as a broke uni student.

Kevin Fisher: Disney is a multi-billion media conglomerate. The fact that they had widespread system failures on DAY ONE is insane! And now apparently hundreds of thousands of user accounts have been hacked and are being sold on the dark web? I wouldn’t touch this service with a 10-foot pole. These early failures show the cracks in their armor, and proves they cannot compete with digitally native giants like Netflix and Apple. Obviously diversification is the name of the game in business, but Disney should stick to what they’re good at: theme parks!

MM: All of those points you just named are the very reasons why Disney Plus is going to succeed! This is a prime example of a heritage brand, one that has been adored for generations, moving into the 21st century and doing it well. The system outages on the launch day were due to an underestimation of the service’s popularity! How can you say that’s a negative thing?

KF: if Disney’s people were truly up to par, they would have foreseen the amount of customers and the level of demand. They’re amateurs!

MM: Maybe so, but as a movie and film enthusiast, do you really believe that another player entering the streaming service market, bringing classic films to millions more across the globe, is bad?

KF: Listen, I love Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel as much as the next guy. However, my gripe with Disney Plus is my same gripe for all streaming services: I think it’s unfair and unjust for these companies to reserve exclusive rights to certain shows, movies, pieces of content, what have you. If they truly had good intentions and wanted to bring creative masterpieces to the most expansive audiences possible, no one would be buying the rights to Friends just so no one else could make money off it! As a film lover, I think this is inherently wrong. Obviously Disney has such a deep-rooted fan base, so they are bound to get millions of die-hard customers who only want to watch Iron Man, and they aren’t able to get this anywhere else.

MM: I have to say, I agree with you there. I don’t like the idea of blocking certain groups of people from watching a film or TV show just because they don’t pay you $15 a month.

KF: I guess we’ll just have to see how the coming months play out for Disney!