Disney Plus has become the new Pokemon Go, the new Tik Tok, the new obsession basically.

My eldest son, who should be prioritising his hard earned money towards things like food, petrol and saving to go flatting, claimed yesterday that Disney Plus is an absolute necessity. I argued it’s a luxury, he begged to differ.

And it’s not just him, his mates are also signing up in their droves.

Their obsession it would seem, is that the platform holds so many titles from their childhood, so much content, but also for Star Wars fans, the entire back catalogue of those movies.

I would rather shoot myself than sit through that, but he argues the amount and quality of content available beats Netflix, beats Amazon, beats Apple, beats all other streaming services hands down.

My son's planning on splitting a subscription for himself with a mate.

I mean this is the new smashed avocado on toast. And he’s not even a Millennial.

He’s Generation Z, he’s the Internet Generation on the cusp of Millennial and this is his ‘necessity’, Disney Plus.

Should we be afraid?

My initial reaction was ‘what a waste of money’.. but at $99 a year, it’s actually one of the cheaper services available.

Less than half the price of Netflix's premium service. And it’s volume of content is capacious.

I asked a tech expert how Disney can keep the price so low and he pointed out it’s because it’s such a diversified business, whereas Netflix for example is stand alone just streaming.

So is this the new giant that will swallow the others?

Punters are predicting so.

Not just with its content, but it offers 4 screens per sub, so 4 simultaneous streams, and it’s a download service too.. so you can download a movie to watch elsewhere another time.

Even our youngest came home from school raving about it saying it’s all anyone at school is talking about and could she please subscribe?

In the States, on its first day alone, 10 million people signed up.

One analyst called that ‘jaw dropping’. It took Netflix more than 2 years to gain its first 10 million subscribers.

I wonder how many of them were parents beaten down by enthusiastic kids, or Star Wars fans wanting to relive their childhood.

Either way, the streaming wars are on, and they’re costly.  

Netflix is set to spend $15 billion on content this year. Disney plans to spend around $11 billion.

This is huge money, and if the kids can watch it for just over 8 bucks a month, no wonder they’re signing up in their droves.