HOLY HELL, have you guys heard? Disney's going down in flames! It's because they've woken up and and are appealing to the Es-Jay-Doubo-Yews! They're also employing extremely greedy tactics to milk every dime from their consumer base, which is of course unique to them and not a symptom of the late-stage capitalist landscape that our world is steadily hurtling toward. Rather than critique the system that leads to consistent indulgence of greed, we need to specifically call out Disney for their unenlightened behavior over the course of hundreds of videos.
...Okay, obnoxious parody of a rant over. But damn, I really dislike Disney, and even I have gotten so fed-up with the sheer quantity of videos on YouTube that have nearly copy-pasted scripts that basically boil down all of Disney's problems to appealing toward the "woke" crowd and valuing profits over "magical" storytelling.
Like, guess what? Disney has always valued profits over storytelling; nothing they have ever made has been done for charity or under the assumption that it would net a loss (at least without being eligible for tax breaks). Walt Disney and a handful of other CEOs like Michael Eisner figured that the best profits come from well-told stories because it builds a brand, but we live in a post-Disney-brand-consolidated world. Businesses that last for any decent length tend to always follow the path of high effort -> low: In the beginning, they put a lot of effort into experimental outings because this is the period in which they want to place themselves on the map, and they won't get there by being derivative or half-assing things. Then, once their audience has been built up, the higher-ups figure that it's okay now to effectively coast, pumping out more projects with tighter deadlines to make as much profit as possible and capitalize on the brand. After a certain point, the market gets to be over-saturated, forcing the company to scale back on the number of projects they release. However, any given product is now given more time to bake in the oven, which ends up winning a portion of the company's audience back. Which will eventually lead to more complacency, and 'lo, the cycle shall repeat...
Well. Assuming that the higher-ups in a company are willing to take losses for a time in order to build their quality back up and not attempt to make sure that every quarter sees an even greater rate of growth than the last.
The fact that Disney hasn't course-corrected the majority of their business snafus is not because they are married to a political ideology or because their love of money is in any way unique. They have simply made so much money by this point that the only way for them to continue growing is to continue engaging in monstrously expensive projects that practically require a lack of polish; any significant time spent polishing up a movie/show/park ride/whatever is time that requires more money and a delayed release. This is a problem that has been afflicting the entirety of Hollywood for a good number of years now. It's just that Disney has their tentacles in so many endeavors that it leaves them open for a lot of things turning out less than ideal.
It's the obsession with never-ending growth and a general tendency for corporations to place such a high premium on their own brands that are causing not only Disney, but the whole economy major problems. We will gain nothing as a society if we keep pointing fingers at individual companies for their poor behavior because it will only serve to blindside people when it turns out that most companies are racing to the bottom in the name of short-term profits.
Oh, and easy borrowing up until the aftermath of COVID-19 didn't really help things much, either. It led to a lot of companies (including Disney) spending money that they didn't really have on various ventures that have proven unsustainable now that the lending valve has been cut off. Seriously: If anyone is thinking of starting a business, always keep in mind that while some credit is required to supplement costs that you really can't afford to meet at the beginning, try to keep subsequent credit-based expenses to a minimum. You never know when major economic problems can hit, cutting off almost all of your major funding as a result.