philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The Disney is Dying – Apple Should Pull the Plug

...

Ten years ago, the gap between these two giants was manageable. Apple was worth approximately $500 billion. Disney sat at $200 billion. It was a partnership of equals. Steve Jobs was Disney’s largest individual shareholder; Bob Iger sat on Apple’s board. Today, that relationship has warped. Apple is hovering near a $4 trillion valuation. Disney is still stuck at $200 billion.

The gap tells the story of the last decade. Big Tech fought a war for media dominance, and the traditional media companies lost. Amazon absorbed MGM to secure James Bond. Google turned YouTube into the largest television platform on Earth. Netflix built a half-trillion-dollar global content engine. Disney, the company that defined American entertainment for a century, is now the smallest player in the room. ...

We are entering an era where AI models are commodities. The underlying technology powering ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude is rapidly converging. In two years, the average user will not care which Large Language Model provides the answer. They will care about the interface. They will care about the personality. Trust is the new moat.

Apple understands hardware and software, but it struggles with “soul.” ...

When Apple integrates Disney’s IP into its AI layer, the paradigm shifts. A child does not ask a generic voice assistant for help with homework. They ask Yoda, and the AI responds with the syntax, wisdom, and voice of the character, powered by Apple’s secure on-device intelligence. ...

Disney is the missing link for spatial computing. Disney does not just tell stories. It builds worlds. The reason people pay thousands of dollars to visit Disney World is to physically step into a narrative. The Vision Pro allows them to do that from their living room. ...

See the full story here: https://kenradio.substack.com/p/the-disney-is-dying?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email