Disney Plus just removed one of its best friends and family-focused features
GroupWatch, the show-sharing tool that made its debut during lockdown, is gone from Disney Plus
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Back in the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic, thebest streaming servicesfell over themselves to make lockdown less isolating – and GroupWatch, fromDisney Plus, was one of the best. Launched in the US in September 2020, it enabled you to create a viewing party for up to seven people to virtuallystream movies and shows with family and friends.
It was effectively Disney’s take onAmazon’s Watch Party. It’s also something we’ve seen other streamers adopt – for example,Apple’s SharePlay is clearly based on a very similar idea. But GroupWatch wasn’t completely a Covid-19 invention.
Disney had been working on it already, but the pandemic accelerated its plans. But now it seems to have changed strategy and you’ll no longer be able to find GroupWatch on the Disney Plus website or app. It was reportedly removed on 18 September.
Why has Disney Plus removed GroupWatch?
So far it hasn’t said, but the reason is likely to be money. Disney is in the middle of a massive cost-cutting exercise that may also lead to Disney Plus following inNetflix’s footsteps byremoving account sharing. GroupWatch wasn’t an account sharing service – like other similar services you needed to have your own subscription to join the watch party – but presumably Disney has concluded that the cost of delivering and supporting group viewing isn’t worth it.
The timing’s rather odd, though. With the writers' and actors' strike continuing to postpone productions, you’d think that streamers would be doing their very best to differentiate one another by focusing on features just like this one – and so far at least it doesn’t look like Amazon intends to remove its watch party feature on Prime Video. Apple certainly isn’t getting shot of SharePlay any time soon.
It’ll be interesting to see if Disney also blocks access to apps such as Teleparty, a show-sync tool that currently work with Netflix,YouTube, Disney Plus,Huluand Amazon. That seems unlikely, as the service is providing a feature Disney doesn’t, and isn’t enabling content sharing with people who don’t already subscribe.
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.
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