Netflix promised to liberate American households from the tyranny of the cable bundle. Instead, the company has just agreed to pay $83 billion for Warner Bros Discovery, absorbing one of Hollywood’s most storied studios and creating precisely the kind of content monopoly that cord-cutters once celebrated escaping.

The deal hands Netflix control over Warner Bros’ century-old production apparatus, HBO’s prestige programming, and franchises including Harry Potter, Batman and Game of Thrones. Combined with its existing 300 million streaming subscribers, the company has effectively recreated the cable bundle inside a single mega-corporation. The difference this time around is that there’s no FCC oversight, no local ownership rules, and no must-carry provisions regarding smaller networks.

Those of us who grew up on Nineties and early-2000s cable remember something resembling actual variety: weird late-night programming, public-access channels, regional sports networks, and outlets serving genuine niches. Netflix’s algorithm-driven monoculture makes that scattered landscape look like a golden age. The company that promised to preserve everything instead created a system in which content vanishes based on engagement metrics and tax write-off calculations. Old films, classic television, anything lacking franchise potential: all face deletion at the whim of accountants optimising quarterly earnings.

David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance mounted a desperate last-minute campaign to prevent this outcome. Ellison met with Trump administration officials on Wednesday alongside his legal team, headed by former Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim. They argued that combining the nation’s largest streaming service with the third-largest, plus a major studio, should be subject to regulatory throttling. But Netflix’s $28-per-share bid beat Paramount’s $26-27 range, and WBD boss David Zaslav appears willing to fight any rejection from Trump’s Justice Department in court.

Netflix has hired veteran telecom lawyer Steve Sunshine to argue that YouTube and TikTok provide sufficient competition to prevent monopoly pricing power. This argument represents a telling admission: algorithmic feeds are doing away with any pretence of actual programming. The streaming giant is essentially conceding that its competition isn’t other studios or networks, but instead an endless scroll of user-generated content and influencer videos. Programming as a craft, with human beings making deliberate choices about what audiences might want to see, is increasingly obsolete.

Having rise to power by attacking cable’s monopolistic bundling, Netflix then systematically recreated it under different branding. The company promised infinite choice but eventually delivered algorithmic curation tied to its own original content. As of the third quarter of this year, 63% of Netflix’s content assets were originals, according to JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth. The streamer has never executed a major acquisition and built its library through internal development. But, with other platforms fighting for relevance, the only path to survival appears to be scale, and Netflix seized the chance to prevent a rival such as Paramount or Amazon from gaining Warner Bros’ intellectual property.

The regulatory chapter of this acquisition is only beginning. Netflix shares fell over 1% on the announcement, while WBD shares gained 2%, suggesting that investors expect a difficult approval process. The deal is expected to close in 12 to 18 months, with Netflix promising a $5.8 billion termination fee if the transaction collapses. The companies project $2-3 billion in annual cost savings by the third year — corporate speak for layoffs and cancelled productions.

“By coming together with Netflix, we will ensure people everywhere will continue to enjoy the world’s most resonant stories for generations to come,” Zaslav said in announcing the deal. This is the same executive whose company has spent the past three years deleting completed films for tax purposes. The stories which resonate, apparently, are the ones that generate sufficient algorithmic engagement to justify their continued existence on a server somewhere. Everything else gets written off.

Thank goodness for Tubi’s bizarre library and Criterion’s careful curation, which serve as digital life rafts for anyone seeking films made before the millennium. As the streaming wars end not with innovation but consolidation, the surviving platforms appear to be Netflix, Amazon Prime, and whatever Paramount becomes after losing this bidding contest. When Netflix first offered the tantalising promise of killing cable, nobody anticipated the company would flay what remained and wear it like a skinsuit.

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Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

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