W HO MIGHT buy Netflix? Speculation on the matter has risen in line with the streaming giant’s own ascent in the past decade. Apple, with its cash hoard, was a frequently rumoured suitor. Or perhaps Amazon, or big distributors like AT & T or Comcast. At one point, industry sources say, Bob Iger of Disney directly asked Reed Hastings, the boss of Netflix, if he would welcome an offer (Mr Hastings said no).

Instead all six companies embarked on a series of massive investments that will reshape the landscape of media: who makes entertainment and how people consume it. Since June AT & T , Comcast and Disney have spent $215bn in total on acquisitions of, respectively, Time Warner ($104bn), Sky, a European broadcaster ($40bn), and much of 21st Century Fox ($71bn). Each is preparing new streaming services that will launch by early 2020.

Apple, meanwhile, has poured perhaps $2bn into original shows with some of Hollywood’s most famous directors and stars. On March 25th the company unveiled its new streaming-video service, Apple TV +, that will be available in more than 100 countries later this year. Amazon is thought to be spending more than $5bn a year on content. And Netflix is expected to burn about $15bn this year on original and licensed content in a bid to add to its 139m global subscribers before most of its would-be rivals get fully up and running.

The firms are chasing the same prize: recurring revenue from video subscriptions by tens of millions of Americans and, potentially, hundreds of millions of international viewers. It is unclear how many of them can thrive at the same time. More than two, analysts reckon, but not all six. There are only so many $10 monthly subscriptions people will pay for. They may opt once again for those bundled with something else, like a mobile service—a business model of which consumers had grown weary in America, where a single distributor sells lots of channels at one price. What forms these reimagined bundles take, and who gets to sell them, will depend on who wins the streaming battles.

In this fight, the contenders have adopted different strategies to win over subscribers. AT & T will bundle entertainment with its mobile service, which could help the company overtake Verizon as the largest wireless carrier in America. Comcast will offer an ad-supported streaming service from NBC Universal, which it owns, to its 52m broadband and pay- TV customers (including Sky’s) in America, Britain and elsewhere in Europe (it will also sell subscriptions, but its ambitions seem more modest than the others’). Disney will use its enviable collection of film franchises, including Star Wars and Marvel superheroes, to draw families to Disney+, then steer them to its consumer products and theme parks.

For the tech giants, video is a way to lure customers into their online emporiums. Amazon, with 100m Prime households, is ahead of Apple for now. But Apple TV can push its glitzy new shows to the world’s 1.4bn iDevices. Apple and Amazon have deeper pockets than AT & T , Comcast or Disney, so can afford to pour billions annually into streaming-video for years to come. Their platforms are perfect for selling online services including video.

Then there is Netflix. Its head start puts it in a strong position. Its algorithms work out what viewers want and it has the infrastructure to deliver it to ever more people. A recession or rising interest rates could hurt its ability to borrow—Netflix has more than $10bn in debt and burns through $3bn of cash a year. But its lead is such that it could curtail spending on content and still stay ahead of competitors.

AT & T and Disney face a more complicated challenge. To prosper in streaming, they must undermine lucrative existing businesses. In AT&T ’s business unit that houses Direc TV , a satellite provider acquired in 2015 at a cost of $63bn, operating income has fallen by 20% since 2016—in part owing to aggressive marketing of Direc TV Now, a cheaper, loss-making streaming bundle of pay- TV networks. The new streaming service from AT&T (marketed under the WarnerMedia brand) will exacerbate the decline. Disney, for its part, will forgo profits of about $1bn this year—and $2bn annually from 2020—as it stops licensing films to Netflix and invests in original shows for its streaming platform, Disney+. New investments in Hulu, a general-interest streaming service with 25m subscribers that Disney controls, will also be costly.

Profitless motives

Disney and AT & T are willing to sacrifice near-term profits for two reasons: the vulnerability of their underlying businesses, and hoped-for returns from streaming. With the rise of Netflix, YouTube and other internet distractions, Americans are watching less pay- TV (see chart) and dropping pricey packages which AT & T sells, and which carry Disney’s TV networks. And they go to the cinema less often. That is why Rupert Murdoch wanted to sell much of his Fox empire, and Jeff Bewkes was keen to offload Time Warner. Networks bereft of “must-have” content will face demands from distributors to lower prices. Disney and AT & T viewed Fox and Time Warner studios and entertainment networks, with their libraries of hits, as valuable assets.