The Great Flood

Disney+, Apple TV+, and the streaming hustle

THE PROLIFERATION OF ORIGINAL STREAMING CONTENT creates the illusion of choice, but what we have instead is—for the most part—a new era of risk-free, market-tested products. This won’t abate, especially with recent twin launches of Netflix’s highest-profile challengers yet. Both services are so unbelievably that they have pluses in their names: November 1 heralded the start of Apple TV+, followed by Disney+ 11 days later. Disney reported 10 million sign-ups for their streaming service on the first day (according to it hopes to break even by 2024, once it reaches 60 to 90 million subscribers); Apple TV+’s numbers are harder to parse, since all customers with new Apple devices get the service free for the first year—though it’s predicted to rack up 100 million subscribers by the end of that year. Both companies hope that their new, or, more recently, prestige cinema like and .