Week in Review - Amazon gets serious about Prime Video

Saturday, May 29, 2021 • By Lucas Matney

Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review!

Last week, I wrote about the potential dangers of Snap’s ambition amid a high-growth year. This week, we’re talking about Big Tech’s persistent mission to defeat The Mouse.

If you're reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny.

The big thing

As more and more streaming networks pop up and fizzle out, it’s becoming clear that the cord cutting future is much more convenient but is still pretty scattered as users pay up for multiple services. The fact that there’s likely more aggressive consolidation up ahead has pushed streaming stakeholders to step up the spending and fight to be one of the last platforms standing.

It’s a fight that fueled Amazon to drop a boatload of money — $8.54 billion to be exact — on its purchase of MGM this week. It’s the company’s second-biggest acquisition to date following its 2017 purchase of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.

It’s also a deal one might not have expected Amazon, which could probably shelve Prime Video tomorrow without losing many Prime subscribers, to make, but it signals that after a few years of Big Tech posturing to conquer Hollywood, there’s still a lengthy fight ahead.

After decades of pushing up against Walmart, Amazon is moving alongside other tech giants like Apple in a bout to build up content empires that rival their next existential rival, Disney, which banked $65 billion last year compared to around $70 billion the year before thanks to pandemic-era effects to their business. Amazon has had pandemic-effects to its business too, ones which pushes its revenues from $70 billion in 2019 to $96 billion in 2020.

For Amazon, its content plays have been lopsided at times. The retailer has been quick to abandon some of its efforts in the gaming world and has appeared reticent to make its Music streaming service a more concerted competitor to Spotify. Prime Video is a service that few consumers seem to have a particular brand affinity for, for many its just another perk that comes along with paying for two-day shipping.

Even with its deepening pocketbooks, whether these companies have the attention spans to steal opportunities from more deadset rivals may be the biggest question as Amazon brings MGM inside its walls and other tech giants look to stake their own claims to stay competitive.

The Rise of the No-Code Economy

Other things

Here are the TechCrunch news stories that especially caught my eye this week:

Amazon is buying MGM
Prime Video has never been the most competitive with other streaming giants, but Amazon is looking to change that with its $8.45 billion acquisition of MGM — the studio behind franchises like James Bond and Rocky.

Twitter details upcoming premium service
Twitter is preparing for the release of a $2.99 per month service called Twitter Blue which brings a number of small upgrades to users of the social media service that change the appearance of the app and offer features like a “reader mode.” It doesn’t sound like anything earth-shattering but it’s yet another change for Twitter which has greatly accelerated its product development in the past year.

Facebook and Instagram will allow users to kill like counts
After a lengthy test for a good chunk of users, Facebook has decided that Like counts aren’t all that bad and that users should be able to choose whether they want to see the number of likes that posts in their feeds are receiving. The new setting rolls out publicly this week.

Florida takes aim at social media companies.. and the constitution
Florida is taking aim at social media companies that ban political figures and it’s almost certainly going to be heading to the courts to defend the new policy which critics have declared is clearly unconstitutional.

WhatsApp sues Indian government
WhatsApp is suing the Indian government over new regulations which limit end-to-end encryption and make private messages inside the app “traceable” to authorities.

Tesla activates an in-car camera to monitor drivers
Tesla, under pressure to ensure its drivers aren’t leaning too heavily on its “full self-driving” systems — announced this week that they will be activating a closed loop camera system inside its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to “detect and alert driver inattentiveness while Autopilot is engaged.”

Image Credits: MGM

Extra things

Some of my favorite reads from our Extra Crunch subscription service this week:

SaaS needs to take a page out of the crypto playbook
“In a world where there is a surplus of alternatives for every job to be done, the scarce resource is not content, tooling, or hacks and tricks — it's attention. And attention needs to be subsidized and incentivized for users to be willing to wander in the wilderness with your product long enough to enter the promised land of "a-ha" and product market fit.”

Dismantling the myths around raising your first check
“The growing complexity of fundraising has the opportunity to make tech either inclusive or exclusive. For new founders looking to raise money, let's dismantle the myths about raising your first check and instead focus on how investors and other successful founders describe the nuance needed to secure money.“

Poor onboarding is the enemy of good hiring
“Most of us can remember the excitement (and anxiety) of receiving and signing an offer for a new job. It's important to capitalize on candidates' enthusiasm and eagerness from the moment the offer is signed, instead of when they log in on Day One…”