They Think We’re Fools
So, let’s get this straight. The corporate overlords at the Magic Kingdom, sitting high atop their mountains of cash, have decided to bestow upon us, the humble subscribers, a series of ‘perks.’ They call it the ’12 Days of Disney+ Perks.’ How generous. How festive. They’re offering a chance—a microscopic, lottery-ticket-level chance—to win a vacation to their Aulani resort, some digital trinkets, and maybe a discount on merchandise we already can’t afford. And the corporate media sycophants are lapping it up, writing breathless articles about these ‘magical’ new offerings. Magical? No. This isn’t magic. It’s a calculated, cynical, and frankly insulting maneuver by a company that is terrified of you hitting the ‘unsubscribe’ button.
This is a bribe. A cheap one at that.
The Honeymoon Is Officially Over
Remember when Disney+ launched? It was the deal of the century. For a ridiculously low price, you got everything. The entire vault. Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, The Simpsons… it was a firehose of nostalgia and new content aimed directly at our wallets, and we gladly opened them. We were promised a haven, an escape from the fragmented, ridiculously expensive world of streaming. Disney was the hero coming to save us from Netflix’s constant price hikes and baffling content decisions. They played the long game, getting millions of us hooked on the cheap stuff, embedding their service into our daily lives, making it the default babysitter for our kids. They knew exactly what they were doing. It was the classic dealer strategy: the first taste is always cheap (or free).
And now the squeeze is on. The price has crept up, then jumped, then leaped. They introduced an ad-supported tier, something once considered sacrilege for the premium Disney brand. They started purging content—shows and movies that *they produced*—vanishing into the ether to save a few bucks on residuals and server costs. They’re cracking down on password sharing, following the same greedy playbook as their competitors. The promise of a simple, affordable streaming paradise has been utterly shattered, replaced by the cold, hard reality of a quarterly earnings report. You are not a fan to them. You are not a guest. You are a ‘Monthly Active User,’ a number on a spreadsheet that must, at all costs, go up.
Enter the Shiny Distractions
So what does a corporation do when its customers start to notice that the product is getting worse while the price is getting higher? You can’t just keep hiking the price without offering something, right? But developing high-quality, groundbreaking shows and movies is expensive and hard. You know what’s cheap? A lottery. A sweepstakes. Dangling a single, impossibly-out-of-reach grand prize in front of 100 million subscribers costs them next to nothing, but it generates headlines and creates the *illusion* of value. For the cost of one vacation package (which is likely a tax write-off for them anyway), they get millions of people to feel like they’re getting something extra. It’s a psychological trick. It’s the same logic behind the ‘one-in-a-million’ shot at a fast-food prize. You never win, but for a second, you think you *could*, and that makes you feel better about buying the greasy burger.
And the other perks? A ‘special look’ at an upcoming movie? Are you kidding me? That’s an advertisement. A trailer. Something they used to beg us to watch for free on YouTube. Now, they’ve packaged it as a ‘perk’ for the subscription you’re already paying for. It is the absolute height of corporate audacity to charge you for the privilege of watching their commercials. It’s like paying a cover charge at a bar and then having the bartender charge you again to look at the menu. We are being played for absolute suckers, and the fact that people are falling for it is a testament to the power of the Disney brand machine (a machine that has been perfecting the art of separating people from their money for a century).
The End Game: A Digital Feudalism
This isn’t just about keeping you subscribed to Disney+. This is about something much bigger. This is about building the ultimate walled garden. The ‘perks’ are the first step. A discount on a cruise here, a special offer on a theme park ticket there. They want to blur the lines between their streaming service and their other, much more expensive, business ventures. They want Disney+ to be the central hub of your entire entertainment life. A digital passport to a world where every transaction, every view, every click, benefits the House of Mouse. They’re not just competing with Netflix anymore; they’re competing with Amazon Prime. They want to create an ecosystem so sticky, so interwoven with discounts and ‘benefits,’ that leaving feels impossible. You won’t just be canceling a streaming service; you’ll be giving up your ‘membership’ to the club. And that’s a much harder decision to make.
They are building a system of digital feudalism where we, the serfs, pay our monthly tithe for access to the castle’s entertainment. And in exchange, the lords of the manor throw us a few scraps—a contest we can’t win, an ad they call a ‘perk’—to keep us loyal and compliant. They collect our data, track our viewing habits, and use that information to fine-tune their methods of extracting more money from us. Every single one of these ‘perks’ is designed to do one thing: modify your behavior to their benefit. Watch this ad (oops, ‘special look’) for a movie so you’ll buy a ticket. Enter this contest for a resort so you’ll think about booking a vacation. It’s a massive, vertically integrated marketing flywheel, and we are the fuel that makes it turn.
So next time you see a headline about a new ‘perk’ from Disney+, don’t get excited. Get angry. See it for what it is: a sign of their desperation and a measure of their contempt for your intelligence. They think a shiny object is all it takes to make you forget you’re paying more for less. It’s time to prove them wrong. The power is still, for now, in our hands. It’s in that simple, beautiful ‘unsubscribe’ button. And maybe if enough of us are willing to use it, they’ll be forced to offer us something of actual value—like a better service for a fair price—instead of just more bread and circuses.
