The saddest part is, there are legitimate grievances to be had for this consolidation of the entertainment industry that none of these histrionic faggots are talking about. When only a few companies have all of these IPs under their umbrella, there's no reason to choose one over the other. And when there's no reason to choose, competition dies. And when competition dies, you lose the singular pressure that has historically forced these companies to make great cartoons/shows/movies/etc.
The Cartoon Cartoons existed because Cartoon Network needed original cartoons that were so good that kids would tune into their channel to watch them for hours on end.
The Nicktoons existed because Viacom needed that for Nickelodeon.
Ditto the animated shows for the Disney Channel.
Exclusivity surpassed business strategy. These companies used to have competitive pressure that
demanded excellence. In generations past, you had to make something so extraordinary that kids from all walks of life would hum the theme songs, talk about their favorite moments, draw fanart, etc. That pressure created a veritable second Golden Age of western animation. Remove that pressure, and what do you get?
Exactly what we have today: safe, homogenized, innocuous, child-proof, flavorless mush, designed to maximize
reach instead of maximizing
quality. You don't need to make the best cartoons anymore, you just need to make a cartoon that's adequate enough to show to people who have subscriptions to 2-3 different streaming services. The bar has dropped from "excellent enough to warrant watching that channel and only that channel", to "eh, good enough". And "good enough" is how an industry slowly dies while pretending it's thriving.
The truth is, if these companies were still making stuff that's genuinely great, they wouldn't be consolidating right now. The fact that they ARE consolidating is an industry-wide admission that they don't believe their own IPs are strong enough to be the reason that someone actually
chooses their ecosystem.
