I just don’t see it that way Ron — and we may just need to agree to disagree.

The Disney strategy has always been to have characters that are made beloved by the stories in which they appear — and then to create and distribute those stories in the appropriate medium of the day. Nothing has changed about that in a century. There have been mistakes — like ABC and ESPN. I don’t say that the strategy has been perfect. But if you ask the question: How has Disney always made its supernormal returns? The answer is the above. So theme parks was a new medium to further distribute the beloved characters/stories. Subscription services is today’s medium of choice. Pixar made lots of sense to acquire with its portfolio of characters and stories that Disney has been mining ever since. And it helped Disney’s animation business update itself.

Where does Disney make its money in live action movies? Avengers, Guardians, Star Wars — characters that become beloved in appealing stories. Yup it does other movies that don’t make supernormal profits.

But the core of the profit machine of the company has been on one strategy — and as I said with the Tide story, it grows, shifts, expands, adapts over time. But the heart of Disney’s profit machine and Tide’s profit machine have a much more similar strategy today then nearly a century ago than it is different.

But we can agree to disagree.