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Comment by DharmaPolice | Hacker News Reader

The legal definition of monopoly in some jurisdictions means anyone with a large enough of a market share able to influence pricing, etc in a market. A market share as low as 25% can be called a monopoly. Does HBO+Netflix have a 25% share of the streaming market? I've no idea, but possibly.

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Market share matters little when most people have multiple streaming services they use simultaneously.

It’s not like Apple and Google where the majority of people either have an Android or iOS based phone.

YouTube I believe has more viewing hours than Netflix.

But none of the streaming services are competing because they don't offer the same products, by design. Nobody is switching from Apple TV to Netflix because they don't share any shows - they buy both.

So? I also go to two different restaurants to buy different food, or two different websites to buy two different things, or fly two different airlines to go to two different places, etc.

Not the same, those directly compete. We all know IP doesn't work like this.

If you say you want Mexican food and I say Restaurant X is closed but we can go to Y, that's probably fine.

If you say you want to watch ratatouille and I say no, but we can watch ratatouing, which is 2 bucks at the DVD graveyard bin at Walmart, you'll say no.

Sounds like you are arguing for shorter copyright terms.

Surely, if I make a movie, I should have the right to sell it.

> Sounds like you are arguing for shorter copyright terms.

I mean, yes?

We know that copyright leads to anti-competitive behavior because that's literally why we invented it.

So when people tell you that obviously media is not a free market, you shouldnt be surprised. It was designed that way and anybody will tell you that.

> YouTube I believe has more viewing hours than Netflix.

Yep by a significant margin in fact https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2025/streaming-reaches-h...

> Does HBO+Netflix have a 25% share of the streaming market? I've no idea, but possibly.

No, not even close. According to Nielsen from this year, Netflix has only 7.5% of total TV hours and "Warner Bros + Discovery" clocks in at 1.5% ("HBO" as an independent entity is not tracked), for a total of 9%. A whopping 16% to go before crossing that 25% threshold.

https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2025/streaming-reaches-h...

Those percentages are of total TV hours, which isn't quite what I was talking about. Still though if you include YouTube (I personally wouldn't as I don't think they're providing a directly comparable product) they're still below 25% which is interesting.

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