Until you can answer one or both in a repeatable, predictable way, we can wave our hands and say "it makes money later!" or "it doesn't make money later!" and neither is provable.
One other aspect that we CAN prove: streaming kills DVD sales. That's a revenue stream that is gone and won't be coming back so we have yet another deficit to fill.
Until then, Box Office and merchandising are the ONLY numbers that we, analysts, and stockholders can point at where "You put in $X and got out $Y" for their movie business. And as of right now, that puts Disney's 2023 numbers deeply negative.
However, trying to balance this critique with some fairness to their strategy, it is difficult to disambiguate "the strategy isn't working" from "the strategy is helping us float across some mediocre years until we chance upon the next Frozen". It's kind of like VC returns, where it's 10 "%" of their IP (Star Wars, Mickey, Frozen, Toy Story, Marvel, etc.) that drive 90% of their performance. 2023 was definitely a poor "vintage" for Disney IP.
That being said, Disney has rebounded from many spells of mediocrity, and their theme parks, merchandise, and old IP (now monetized through Disney+ as you say) have kept them afloat through those poor periods.
Most recently they've only been able to jump-start the IP engines through acquisition (Pixar 2006, Marvel in 2009). I'm not a Disney shareholder myself, but I agree that the IP tap seems to be running dry and that's very concerning. I don't think Epic Games has anywhere near the value ceiling that Marvel and Pixar did.
Which is why Disney+ is its own streaming service. Keeps all the eggs in the same basket.
Not everything can be Frozen, but the pallet of Wish merchandise at Walmart is still there and now all marked down (except the Lego because they know that someone will buy it eventually for parts).
Elemental merchandising was completely non-existent and that was a mistake, people enjoyed that.
