On the tail end of wrongful death accusations in past months, Disney issues two more strong reminders this week that it’s not in the business of making friends, despite the cheery nature of many of its flicks. On September 25 they released a press statement advertising the expansion of their new “paid-sharing” program.
Like many press releases, without a close read it can sometimes be difficult to discern whether the news is bad or good for the consumer. To be clear upfront: this is bad news if you’ve ever benefitted from ‘unpaid sharing’ of the streaming service. The new service is being framed as a way to share your account with users outside your household. However, Disney+ will now prevent access to the service on the go unless the user inputs a one-time passcode sent to the primary user’s email address.
Disney's Q&A Provided No Real Answers
Disney’s statement begins with a brief introduction highlighting that, in fact, they are giving users a new way to “enjoy their Disney+ subscription along with a family member or friend,” before it launches into one of those hyper-convenient question and answer-style blogs in which the questioner repeatedly asks the perfect question to elicit a clean, corporate response (the illusion being that it is you, in fact, asking these questions of a helpful and informative Disney).
“Wait,” “OK,” “so,” begins the fictional interviewer, before the now-owner of mega-franchise Star Wars responds positively to its own carefully-worded questions such as “can I watch Disney+ outside of my household?” It gently chides users not to: “Your Disney+ subscription is meant to be used within your Household, which is a collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside there.”
New Disney Sharing Policy and Resulting Layoffs
They followed up the tightening of their Disney+ policy with a round of layoffs, according to reports. Disney sent a statement to Deadline saying that the 300-odd layoffs in their corporate division were “cost-saving” measures. Disney again reminded us that the changes are hugely positive: “We continually evaluate ways to invest in our businesses and more effectively manage our resources and costs to fuel the state-of-the-art creativity and innovation that consumers value and expect from Disney.” It’s part of their “ongoing optimization” as they discover ways to “operate more efficiently.” Scant comfort be it to the hundreds of workers that have just been ‘optimized’.
