Evidence since 2020 shows Disney+ has in fact become a long‑term, major rival to Netflix in global streaming.

• Rapid scale‑up close to Netflix from the start: By December 2020 (the month of the prediction), Disney+ had already reached about 86.8 million subscribers, and passed 94.9 million by early 2021, far ahead of its original targets. (en.wikipedia.org) Industry coverage at the one‑year mark was already calling Disney+ “Netflix’s biggest rival,” explicitly framing it as the primary competitive threat in the streaming wars. (thewrap.com)

• Direct competition in total subscriptions: By August 2022, Disney’s streaming portfolio (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+) reached 221 million subscriptions, slightly surpassing Netflix’s ~220.7 million at that time, cementing Disney as a peer‑scale competitor in global streaming. (en.wikipedia.org) Disney+ alone counted 161.8 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2022. (en.wikipedia.org)

• Sustained, large‑scale rival through 2025: As of late 2025, Netflix still leads the market with 300M+ subscribers, but Disney remains one of the only platforms in the same tier: Disney+ has about 131.6 million subscribers on its own, and Disney+ plus Hulu total roughly 195–196 million globally. (thewrap.com) Analyses of the 2025 streaming landscape typically list Disney+ alongside Amazon Prime Video and Max as Netflix’s main global rivals, with Disney+ holding around 12–14% share in major markets and ranking in the top few services by usage. (corestory.in)

Across a 5‑year window (2019–2025), Disney+ has maintained large global scale, is consistently discussed as one of Netflix’s primary competitors, and occasionally even edges Netflix in combined subscriptions when bundled with Hulu/ESPN+. That matches the podcast’s claim that Disney+ would be a major long‑term rival—even though, as the predictor hedged, it has not clearly surpassed Netflix overall.