Yet we have never seen such consolidation on any level like this. Have you?I'm being neither optimistic or pessimistic, but rather acting on data. I've been consuming content this way for more than 15 years. There has never been a merger or consolidation that I can point to that ever impacted this use case, in my experience.
It's like complaining about data usage or pricing or something - it's a solved problem, I have unlimited data, and if it gets too expensive then I will change my habits and spend my money elsewhere. I won't raise the specter of data usage and pricing in every topic that it's remotely relevant in. That's how I see the point of consolidation - it's not new, and hasn't impacted the space to date, so where is the reason to be concerned? If something changes as a result (fewer players, so trying to raise prices, for example) then I speak with my wallet and rely more on streaming libraries and promotions. If streaming services are too expensive, again, I speak with my wallet and subscribe more precisely instead of maintaining a library of services to access when things were cheaper.
All it takes is one of them to pull it, then what you bought is no longer yours. Correct?
So if they do that you only have one place to go to get that TV show or movie.
Its all about leverage, and getting the most profit.
Havent we seen it with local broadcasting?
Hold back a few hundred channels, is dozens of cities?
That is a huge reasons prices shot up over the last 20 years.