From the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve:
"Son, stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no damn good, but they will always need land and they will pay through the nose to get it!"
Granted, I don't know all the details of the transaction, but...
I see this as another example of shortsightedness in order to boost quarterly shareholder profit.
Once that land is sold and developed to capacity, it can only take away from the guest experience, and ultimately the real value of WDW having that much land to begin with.
And, they'll never get it back.
This is much different than choosing to run buses compared to building more monorail due to cost. That could be changed. Maybe a better system will be developed. But once that land is gone, it's gone.
It would be one thing if shareholders were actually long term holders with a vested interest in the company's long term goals and profit, but a lot are likely people with short term profits in mind. If Disney doesn't look good, sell and buy Microsoft or Google, or Exxon.
By all accounts, that land was purchased by Walt for long term, much longer than now.
There's the camp of "that's not the way Walt would have done it" to be sure, and that can be argued about many attractions, infrastructure, hotels, the original concept of Epcot, etc. and there are always other ways of doing things.
But this is just so fundamentally different and obviously wrong, it's almost painful.
