While I hate the idea of people losing their jobs, stepping back for a moment and looking at what they are claiming, its not terribly surprising:
Spencer said the roles affect mostly corporate and support functions
When companies merge, this is kinda needed. You don’t need two fully functional HR departments. While the HR staff from the buying company will likely need to expand, it won’t be by the same amount as the HR department of the company being bought. As network functions are merged, you probably don’t need all of the IT staff which came with the merger. A lot of management functions likely end up merged, meaning redundancies. And this sort of thing is going to move through a lot of the non-project work functions of the company.
Yes it sucks. But, it’s to be expected in a merger. Now, whether or not we want this level of consolidation, that’s a different ball of wax entirely. The last thing we need is more studios falling under the sway of these massive companies. That’s the thing which should be drawing our ire.
One idea to always go back to is:
This can be tough to evaluate sometimes, but it’s a good general idea.
Does the claim sit outside the natural world as currently understood by scientific theory?
If yes, then there’s going to need to be a lot of evidence. If not, the level of evidence is lower.
Does the claim involve a low probability event?
If yes, then more evidence is needed of that event.
Does the claimant have a stake in the claim?
For example, does the person get money, fame or other stuff by getting people to believe the claim? If so, more evidence should be required.
What type of evidence would you expect to see, if the claim were correct?
When things exist, they tend to leave evidence of their existence. Bones, ruins, written records, etc. If someone says something exists, or used to exist, but they should have archeological/anthropological evidence to back it up.
Sure, it’s always going to be a bit subjective as to what requires proof. And for a lot of low stakes things, there’s no point in going after it. If someone claims to be from Pitcairn, then what’s the point of questioning it? Just say, “huh, cool” and move on. If someone is trying to convince you that an historical figure existed, and that should effect how you see the world, maybe ask for as bit more evidence.