Singaporean youths react to the launch of Disney+

With the arrival of Disney+, Singaporeans are even more spoilt for choice when it comes to online entertainment. The streaming service offers television series, films and documentaries from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and Star.

The content on Disney+ is enticing. However, with the large variety of video streaming services and the steep price of subscriptions, is there still room for Mickey Mouse to thrive here? Or are the current selections already more than enough? We spoke to four youths to find out.

While the number of subscriptions varies between the youths we spoke to, all four said they subscribed to Netflix. In fact, Chan Yong Lin, 27, subscribes only to Netflix and has no plans to hop on any other platform. 

He said: “Netflix has a good library of shows that I currently cannot even finish watching… I still prefer Netflix as it has content that I enjoy and so far the new shows that they have introduced are to my liking.”

Another current Netflix-only subscriber, Miranda Cardenas, 24, plans to subscribe to Disney+, but will not be signing up for any more than that. 

She said, “There are only so many hours a week I spend watching content and I don’t think it justifies the cost of subscribing to more services.

“Disney+ makes the cut because of the sheer variety and volume of content it offers. It’s also a factor that I split these subscriptions with my boyfriend, so the cost is halved – if it were just me, I would stick to one service.”

Miranda will not be looking to drop Netflix for any other either, with two streaming services being her maximum. 

She explained: “There’s content on Netflix that I wouldn’t want to drop. Unless prices increase to the point that it’s a bit silly to have two, then I will have to think about it.”

Yap Shi Quan, 24, subscribes to two services, Netflix and Mubi, and will not be planning on taking on more. He expressed that both offer just enough with the regular updates to their catalogues and that he still prefers to watch films in cinemas. 

There is also nothing on Disney+ that he really wants to watch either, a sentiment shared by Chng Ying Tong, 29, who subscribes to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Viu, Spotify, and friDay.

Ying Tong said: “I will most likely not subscribe to Disney+ at this point in time because their content doesn’t appeal to me so I will probably stay with Netflix for the time being.

“I do think that Disney and Apple TV will have a hard time convincing Netflix and Viu customers to shift over because their library content is not as comprehensive at the moment but I could be wrong!

“I will only consider shifting from Netflix to Disney when the content they offer is comprehensive and diverse. But I’m definitely curious how the fight for market share would be and how that would affect consumers like myself.”