Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos walked into a Senate hearing today with a fascinating stat: 80 percent of HBO Max subscribers already pay for Netflix. His message? Don’t worry about us becoming a monopoly because we already kind of dominate the space anyway.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee called Sarandos in to explain why Netflix’s proposed $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and film studios shouldn’t scare the hell out of everyone. The concern is obvious. Netflix already has 301.63 million subscribers, making it the biggest player in streaming. WBD comes in third with 128 million users across HBO Max and Discovery+.
The Complementary Services Argument
Sarandos tried to paint this as a win for consumers. He claimed the services are “very complementary” and that merging them would give people more content for less money. That 80 percent overlap stat was supposed to prove that people already see these services as companions rather than competitors.
But here’s the thing. Just because people subscribe to both doesn’t mean they want one company controlling both. That’s like saying it’s fine if one company owns every grocery store in town because people already shop at multiple locations.
Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota wasn’t buying it either. She pressed Sarandos on how Netflix plans to keep streaming affordable, especially after the company just raised prices in January 2025 despite adding millions of subscribers. You know, the classic move of charging more when you’re already winning.
The One-Click Cancel Defense
Sarandos pulled out the “you can cancel anytime” card. He told senators that Netflix is a “one-click cancel” service, so if people think it’s too expensive, they can just leave. Which is technically true but also kind of misses the point about market concentration and competitive pricing.
He also tried to justify past price hikes by claiming they came with “a lot more value” for subscribers. The Technology executive calculated that Netflix subscribers spend about 35 cents per hour of content watched compared to 90 cents for Paramount+. MoffettNathanson backed up similar numbers from January 2025, finding Netflix generated 34 cents per hour versus Paramount+’s 76 cents.
That’s a clever way to frame it. Instead of talking about the monthly price tag, he’s talking about cost per hour of eyeballs on screens. It makes Netflix sound like a bargain even as they keep bumping up subscription fees.
The YouTube Deflection
When the monopoly concerns kept coming, Sarandos pointed fingers at the real giants: Google, Apple, and Amazon. He called them “deep-pocketed tech companies trying to run away with the TV business.” He specifically highlighted YouTube’s dominance, noting that Nielsen’s December data showed YouTube capturing 12.7 percent of TV viewership compared to Netflix’s 9 percent.
His math suggested that even if Netflix merged with HBO Max, they’d only have 21 percent of the SVOD market. Which sounds reasonable until you remember that YouTube isn’t really a direct competitor to subscription streaming services. It’s a different business model entirely, mostly ad-supported with a premium tier on the side.
The Bidding War Nobody Asked For
This hearing is just the beginning of what promises to be a long and messy fight. Netflix amended its offer to be all-cash at $27.75 per share for HBO Max and WB’s film studios, totaling an enterprise value of $82.7 billion. Meanwhile, Paramount is trying a hostile takeover of all of WBD for $108.4 billion at $30 per share, including the cable channels Netflix doesn’t even want.
Paramount has already sued WBD over its Netflix deal, which tells you how seriously they’re taking this threat. The streaming wars were already brutal when companies were just competing for viewers. Now they’re competing to buy each other’s arsenals.
Sarandos told senators that Netflix is working with the Department of Justice on potential guardrails against future price hikes. That’s supposed to be reassuring, but guardrails only work if someone actually enforces them. And news flash: companies rarely volunteer to limit their own pricing power without serious regulatory teeth.
The most telling part of Sarandos’s testimony might be when he described WBD as “both a competitor and a supplier.” That’s corporate speak for “we’ve had a complicated relationship and now we just want to own them.” Netflix’s whole pitch is that they want to keep adding more content and choice, but consolidation typically leads to less choice, not more, even if the content library gets bigger under one roof.
It’s wild that the defense against monopoly concerns is essentially “we’re already so big that adding another major player won’t really change the competitive landscape that much.”
