6 ms·

Why, what the hell is the point? Why would the average person care about a merger?

by alightsoul 9d ago

pwdisswordfishq 9d ago
And why would they care what the average person thinks about a merger?
- lokar 9d ago
  They (Ellison) don’t. They want to pressure state law enforcement to give them a pass.
lokar 9d ago
They are threatening to move out of state if the laws are fairly enforced. This concerns workers in the film industry, and people in LA generally.
- alightsoul 9d ago
  I forgot i don't live in the us. So in Latin America people just call it a day and survive and try to get another job, they don't even know companies lay off or move operations during mergers
  - jubilanti 9d ago
    So then why did it take me five minutes to find this article from a month ago about two different Mexican airline unions taking opposing views on the upcoming Volaris - Viva Aerobus merger over exactly these kinds of concerns? https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/empresas/2026/08/05/pelea-de-sindicatos-por-fusion-de-viva-y-volaris-stia-respalda-propuesta/ https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/empresas/2026/08/05/pelea-de... There's a dozen more across countries and industries if you want them. Stop being discriminatory against your own people as a way to protest HN's US-centricness. Latin America has massive labor unions that routinely have to decide what they are going to do when big corporations are about to merge in ways that will potentially harm labor power. Even more so than in the US, in fact.
    - alightsoul 9d ago
      This is all news to me. Like these news outside mexico are quite rare
  - johnnyanmac 9d ago
    >So in Latin America people just call it a day and survive and try to get another job Not too dissimilar to the US. But "survive" is harder with the higher cost of Living. And hiring for a new role can take weeks at best. In this particular job market, it's not uncommon for professionals to go 6+ months before landing another role. Gig are a rising thing in the US, but those are also becoming competitive. And if you can't get enough gigs, you cannot even pay rent. Because of all of that, the few unions that are left fight harder than ever to try and maintain the jobs as is.
    - alightsoul 9d ago
      In Latin America people have fewer unions, usually centered around construction because it is very easy to die on a construction site. Latin American countries are among those least friendly to unions and there have been anti union crackdowns and proposed legislation to ban them or limit their functions. For example teacher unions. Parents are not defending teachers they are just being treated like disposable objects that are thrown away the moment they defend themselves, and they can do it because the unemployment rate is 10% and only 40% hold an employment contract.
- mistrial9 9d ago
  Hollywood is its own worst enemy. The number of giant scandals and last-minute game changes are innumerable. As is widely documented, the extensive and stable assets of Hollywood studios are not being used on the best of days. Cry no tears for these leaders.
  - freejazz 9d ago
    I don't think the poster was crying for those leaders
    - lokar 9d ago
      Correct. The industry employs many many middle and lower income people in LA.
- johnnyanmac 9d ago
  Good, get out. If you're going to throw away an entire century of culture over not getting enlough tax breaks, you're a parasite. Not a taste maker. Don't get me wrong, it will be a big shock short term to artists, as seen the last few years. But in the middle-long term the invisible had fills in the gap. That's the whole point of competition, and why such monopolies harm everyone long term.
empath75 9d ago
In general, they do not care about particular mergers. US laws regarding unfair competition happened because of abuse by big trusts 100+ years ago, Standard Oil in particular, and the result was a regulatory/legal approval framework. It really shouldn't _matter_ what the public thinks about particular mergers in terms of whether they are approved, but mostly lawsuits to block mergers are brought by states, and in this case, the astroturf campaign was targeted at the California AG, who is an elected official and answers to the public.
thayne 9d ago
I can think of several reasons why an average person might be opposed to a merger (ex. less competition and the things that go along with that like higher prices and lower quality, and fear that products and services will be discontinued after the merge). But I'm struggling to come up with a good reason why you would support a merger.
- Mountain_Skies 9d ago
  Some seem to believe that their favorite IP would get new productions in the merged company but I wonder if those posts were part of the astroturf campaign.
- JumpCrisscross 9d ago
  > I'm struggling to come up with a good reason why you would support a merger If I were a loyal Spirit Airlines customer, I’d have supported their proposed merger. Similarly, when an artist I love gets greenlit by a major studio, it’s news worth celebrating—they’re getting more resources at their disposal. (To be clear, I think the Paramount merger is a travesty, but mostly due to corruption rather than anything intrinsic to Hollywood needing protecting.)
  - sleepybrett 9d ago
    less places for that artist to shop their film means less of a chance their film gets made. How is that good for you or them?
    - JumpCrisscross 9d ago
      > less places for that artist to shop their film means less of a chance their film gets made When a small studio gets bought by a bigger one, it typically results in more production from the small studio. That’s good if you like their content. They Donny have to waste time shopping films, they’ve already been allocated a budget.
      - mrguyorama 9d ago
slowin 9d ago
The Ellisons already control way too many media outlets and have started instituting censorship on TikTok. They are aggressively Zionist and I think it's bad for our nation (and the world) to have a pro-Israel media empire feeding propaganda to people. Look at what CBS has become, Bari Weiss is fully control of the agenda and stories coming out of it.
jubilanti 9d ago
Humans have been concerned with monopolization and fair competition since at least Ancient Rome. Entire civilizations routinely revolt when the means of production and distribution are centralized to such an extent that both consumers and small businesses feel the pain. Something rubs people the wrong way when Crassus became the richest man in the Roman world after buying up all the fire fighting companies, then using that to extort homeowners to sell at a deep discount when they were on fire. That was followed by many reforms that led to a public firefighters. It was just over 100 years ago when the US went through its Trust Busting era breaking up the oil, steel, and rail. Ordinary people cared a lot about that. Enough to change the course of presidential elections. Edit: Also, have you ever complained about how all the TV shows and movies these days seem to be the same? Just endless franchises and remakes and product placement and lowest common denominator slop? Well, a good part of that is due to media consolidation, which makes it harder for smaller independent TV and movie studios to compete. The soon-to-be four companies in America that control 80% of mass media are basically hedge funds.
regularization 9d ago
Because 5 companies control 80% of movie box office in the US and that number is about to shrink to 4? Not only making the profits and doing massive layoffs, but deciding what content we can see? When purchasing Paramount, David Ellison published a press release to the Jerusalem Press talking about how he supported the IDF financially. Actor Mark Ruffalo recently reminded people he said this, and Zionist organizations are denouncing him as an "anti-semite" for reminding people of this.

Why, what the hell is the point? Why would the average person care about a merger?

pwdisswordfishq 9d ago

And why would they care what the average person thinks about a merger?

lokar 9d ago
They (Ellison) don’t. They want to pressure state law enforcement to give them a pass.

lokar 9d ago

They are threatening to move out of state if the laws are fairly enforced. This concerns workers in the film industry, and people in LA generally.

alightsoul 9d ago
I forgot i don't live in the us. So in Latin America people just call it a day and survive and try to get another job, they don't even know companies lay off or move operations during mergers
- jubilanti 9d ago
  So then why did it take me five minutes to find this article from a month ago about two different Mexican airline unions taking opposing views on the upcoming Volaris - Viva Aerobus merger over exactly these kinds of concerns? https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/empresas/2026/08/05/pelea-de-sindicatos-por-fusion-de-viva-y-volaris-stia-respalda-propuesta/ https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/empresas/2026/08/05/pelea-de... There's a dozen more across countries and industries if you want them. Stop being discriminatory against your own people as a way to protest HN's US-centricness. Latin America has massive labor unions that routinely have to decide what they are going to do when big corporations are about to merge in ways that will potentially harm labor power. Even more so than in the US, in fact.
  - alightsoul 9d ago
    This is all news to me. Like these news outside mexico are quite rare
- johnnyanmac 9d ago
  >So in Latin America people just call it a day and survive and try to get another job Not too dissimilar to the US. But "survive" is harder with the higher cost of Living. And hiring for a new role can take weeks at best. In this particular job market, it's not uncommon for professionals to go 6+ months before landing another role. Gig are a rising thing in the US, but those are also becoming competitive. And if you can't get enough gigs, you cannot even pay rent. Because of all of that, the few unions that are left fight harder than ever to try and maintain the jobs as is.
  - alightsoul 9d ago
    In Latin America people have fewer unions, usually centered around construction because it is very easy to die on a construction site. Latin American countries are among those least friendly to unions and there have been anti union crackdowns and proposed legislation to ban them or limit their functions. For example teacher unions. Parents are not defending teachers they are just being treated like disposable objects that are thrown away the moment they defend themselves, and they can do it because the unemployment rate is 10% and only 40% hold an employment contract.
mistrial9 9d ago
Hollywood is its own worst enemy. The number of giant scandals and last-minute game changes are innumerable. As is widely documented, the extensive and stable assets of Hollywood studios are not being used on the best of days. Cry no tears for these leaders.
- freejazz 9d ago
  I don't think the poster was crying for those leaders
  - lokar 9d ago
    Correct. The industry employs many many middle and lower income people in LA.
johnnyanmac 9d ago
Good, get out. If you're going to throw away an entire century of culture over not getting enlough tax breaks, you're a parasite. Not a taste maker. Don't get me wrong, it will be a big shock short term to artists, as seen the last few years. But in the middle-long term the invisible had fills in the gap. That's the whole point of competition, and why such monopolies harm everyone long term.

empath75 9d ago

In general, they do not care about particular mergers. US laws regarding unfair competition happened because of abuse by big trusts 100+ years ago, Standard Oil in particular, and the result was a regulatory/legal approval framework. It really shouldn't _matter_ what the public thinks about particular mergers in terms of whether they are approved, but mostly lawsuits to block mergers are brought by states, and in this case, the astroturf campaign was targeted at the California AG, who is an elected official and answers to the public.

thayne 9d ago

I can think of several reasons why an average person might be opposed to a merger (ex. less competition and the things that go along with that like higher prices and lower quality, and fear that products and services will be discontinued after the merge). But I'm struggling to come up with a good reason why you would support a merger.

Mountain_Skies 9d ago
Some seem to believe that their favorite IP would get new productions in the merged company but I wonder if those posts were part of the astroturf campaign.
JumpCrisscross 9d ago
> I'm struggling to come up with a good reason why you would support a merger If I were a loyal Spirit Airlines customer, I’d have supported their proposed merger. Similarly, when an artist I love gets greenlit by a major studio, it’s news worth celebrating—they’re getting more resources at their disposal. (To be clear, I think the Paramount merger is a travesty, but mostly due to corruption rather than anything intrinsic to Hollywood needing protecting.)
- sleepybrett 9d ago
  less places for that artist to shop their film means less of a chance their film gets made. How is that good for you or them?
  - JumpCrisscross 9d ago
    > less places for that artist to shop their film means less of a chance their film gets made When a small studio gets bought by a bigger one, it typically results in more production from the small studio. That’s good if you like their content. They Donny have to waste time shopping films, they’ve already been allocated a budget.
    - mrguyorama 9d ago

slowin 9d ago

The Ellisons already control way too many media outlets and have started instituting censorship on TikTok. They are aggressively Zionist and I think it's bad for our nation (and the world) to have a pro-Israel media empire feeding propaganda to people. Look at what CBS has become, Bari Weiss is fully control of the agenda and stories coming out of it.

jubilanti 9d ago

Humans have been concerned with monopolization and fair competition since at least Ancient Rome. Entire civilizations routinely revolt when the means of production and distribution are centralized to such an extent that both consumers and small businesses feel the pain. Something rubs people the wrong way when Crassus became the richest man in the Roman world after buying up all the fire fighting companies, then using that to extort homeowners to sell at a deep discount when they were on fire. That was followed by many reforms that led to a public firefighters. It was just over 100 years ago when the US went through its Trust Busting era breaking up the oil, steel, and rail. Ordinary people cared a lot about that. Enough to change the course of presidential elections. Edit: Also, have you ever complained about how all the TV shows and movies these days seem to be the same? Just endless franchises and remakes and product placement and lowest common denominator slop? Well, a good part of that is due to media consolidation, which makes it harder for smaller independent TV and movie studios to compete. The soon-to-be four companies in America that control 80% of mass media are basically hedge funds.

regularization 9d ago

Because 5 companies control 80% of movie box office in the US and that number is about to shrink to 4? Not only making the profits and doing massive layoffs, but deciding what content we can see? When purchasing Paramount, David Ellison published a press release to the Jerusalem Press talking about how he supported the IDF financially. Actor Mark Ruffalo recently reminded people he said this, and Zionist organizations are denouncing him as an "anti-semite" for reminding people of this.