
There are more streaming choices than ever – why are prices going up? - prostoalex
https://www.theverge.com/21310442/tv-streaming-youtube-fubo-price-increases-carrier-fees-disputes-costs-cable-television
======
twblalock
The low prices were never sustainable. Streaming companies have ever-
increasing costs and they can either make money with subscriptions, one-time
rental fees (common on Amazon Prime Video) or advertisements -- or a
combination of those.

Low subscription prices are sustainable when the subscriber base is growing
and continually bringing in more money, but at some point most of the customer
base has been reached and then the only way to increase revenue is to raise
prices. Until recently, streaming customers have had their subscription prices
subsidized by subscriber growth.

Why can't streaming companies be happy with the revenue they already have?
They need to increase revenue not solely because shareholders demand it, but
also because the price of content continues to increase, _especially_ when
content providers know they have leverage when licensing terms are negotiated.
The bigger a streaming company gets, the more eyeballs will see the content,
so content providers feel justified in asking for more money. Also, streaming
companies generally have libraries of content that increase in size over time,
so the total money they pay for licensing will also continue to increase even
if the price of each piece of content does not. On top of all that, they need
to pay for the infrastructure to deliver all the bytes.

(This is why Disney's streaming service is in such a good spot -- they already
own the content, and they have a huge back catalog.)

Say what you will about the cable companies (and they really do suck) but
their pricing was not entirely a result of monopolistic practices. Price
pressure from content owners was also a major factor, and it is such a strong
force that streaming companies can't escape it.

~~~
chii
It's a problem of business model to me.

Streaming companies are starting to look like cable companies, because the
"system" incentivizes exclusivity of content.

When netflix started, they didn't make their own content, but instead licensed
it. They offered fast and reliable services, and the content was tangential.

But as soon as content producers (and other media companies including cable
companies) saw how profitable netflix was, they either raised their content
license fees, or withdrew it to add to their own streaming service for
exclusivity.

Therefore, netflix needed to complete with exclusivity. This is starting to
look like the cable days.

I would propose that all content producing companies have to license their
content to anyone who is willing to pay, at the "same" price (per user? per
year? etc? this is something yet to be decided). That is, a content producer
cannot charge one entity one price, and another entity a different price, nor
refuse to license it to another entity (in the same way that a store cannot
charge one customer one price, while another customer gets a different price).

~~~
marvin
My proposal is that everyone pirate the crap out of whatever they wish to
watch, as the civil disobedience threat behind the happy facade.

Hopefully this will once again force content producers to consider the risks
of prioritizing profits exclusively, at the cost of convenience and
fragmentation. Worked 10 years ago, should work equally fine today.

~~~
harryh
10 years ago pirates complained about cable packages that forced them to buy a
whole bunch of channels they didn't want. Instead they wanted a la carte
choices.

Now pirates complain about "convenience and fragmentation." Saying they want a
service with everything all in one place.

The truth is that pirates want content for free. Which is fine. I get that.
But don't try to package up this belief as some kind of principled "civil
disobedience."

You want to watch other people's stuff for free. Own it.

~~~
Spivak
I mean Spotify has completely eliminated my desire to pirate music. I did when
I was younger but $10/mo easily worth the price.

If such a thing existed for TV and movies it would be a no-brainer too. And
Netflix was that for a while. Sure, it didn’t have everything but it had
enough that I had more good content than I could watch. It’s not that it’s
fragmented, it’s that too expensive to maintain 7 streaming service
subscriptions. So most people seem to pick one or two, account share to get
coverage, and then pirate what still isn’t available.

~~~
harryh
"I pay for what I feel like paying for and then I steal the stuff I don't feel
like paying for" kind of proves my point.

------
ChuckMcM
I am keeping an eye on Netflix and Amazon who are creating more and more
content. They are looking to cut out the "middle" as it were and while their
successes are a bit hit or miss, my assumption is that they will eventually
figure out how to get the best production companies on board and completely
take people like Disney and Viacom/CBS out of the picture. Can't do it for
pre-existing content but they can for new content going forward.

~~~
twblalock
The pre-existing content is the problem. How many people would subscribe to
Amazon and Netflix if the only content available was produced by Amazon and
Netflix?

In some ways the video/DVD business was better for consumers, because once
you've bought the DVD you won't have to go pay more money next year to be
allowed to watch it again. The problem is very few people can afford all the
DVDs they might ever want to watch.

~~~
vladvasiliu
I think this is actually a good point as to why streaming works so well. How
often do people rewatch the same movies / tv shows? I know in my case those
are in the single digits.

There's also the convenience factor. You're over at a friend's house and
decide to watch a movie? Better hope you grabbed the dvd with you or that he
has one. Just discovered something you wanted to see? Have to wait a day or
two or drive to the store to get it. Oh, not what you expected and get bored
after ten minutes? Tough, you won't get your money back.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
There’s always outliers.

You’d be shocked to find out how many times I’ve watched Deep Space Nine since
I subscribed to Netflix two years ago.

It’s great because most of the episodes are utter garbage, but..

At least $3 of the AU$15 per month I pay could go directly to Andrew Jordt
Robinson and the writers for their outstanding work on Elim Garak.

~~~
majewsky
3 whole dollars? But I'm just a humble tailor. :)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
That tickled me, thank you 8)

------
blinding-streak
Linear TV as a concept just doesn't seem sustainable for much longer at the
current trajectory. It's lost half its viewership in the past 3 years [1]. The
decline will continue. Flagship channels will continue to exist, but at some
point the bundling model will break down when the economics deteriorate
further. Bundling is the only thing keeping most of these channels afloat.

[1] [https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/linear-tv-loses-half-
its-...](https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/linear-tv-loses-half-its-viewers-
as-streaming-services-soar-61ac0d67381f)

~~~
selectodude
It’s sports. As long as people want sports, they can bundle and charge
whatever they want. HGTV probably pays for itself in advertising alone, but
bundle it with, say, ESPN and you can charge $1/mo and streaming companies
have no choice but to buy it. I would love to spend $65/mo for all the sports,
but I can’t. All of the people who want the channels I don’t want are
subsidizing me. Unbundle everything and now I’m paying $170/mo and all the
other ancillary channels cease to exist.

~~~
dexterdog
ESPN needs way way more than one dollar per month per subscriber for their
licensing alone.

~~~
sircastor
I recall reading somewhere it was something like $6/subscriber, they highest
of any channel, and every subscriber pays to support the channel for those who
utilize it.

~~~
dexterdog
I thought it was more than that, but you may be right. Regardless if it goes a
la carte the price would have to be more than double that because at least
half of the people would drop it. Their whole business model is based on the
forced purchase in partnership with the cable companies and it is absolutely
not sustainable for the future.

------
Joeri
Prices are going up because there is no competition. All these services have
different selections of content, and paradoxically the more of them there are,
the smaller the slice each one gets, and the more services you need to
subscribe to in order to have a well rounded selection. If you are fine with
the old model, where the station picks your programming for you, then this
model is an on demand continuation of that, but if you would like a model like
in music streaming where all services carry mostly the same content but
provide a different UX, you are out of luck.

I’m currently subscribed to four streaming services, and disney hasn’t even
launched in my area. It is too much. I’m going to get rid of a few, and just
start pirating content again. There are many shows and movies I can’t get on
any streaming service anyway, but the pirate bay carries them all in bluray
quality.

~~~
chii
> all services carry mostly the same content but provide a different UX, you
> are out of luck.

and hence the return to channel bittorrent.

~~~
itskwanyall
I’d try and confirm that but the UX on Prime Video is so bad I can never tell
what’s actually exists on the platform

------
sixothree
Youtube TV is just such an awful experience. It's slow, non-responsive,
completely uncustomizable, non-intuitive.

Skipping 15 minutes ahead using a remote control is virtually impossible.

You cannot turn off auto play. And what it chooses is complete garbage -
nothing I ever watched while using it.

Ugh.

~~~
chrismcb
Youtube TV has some issues, but I've never experienced those. I use shield and
fast forward with a remote is easy. I've never had it autoplay. I'm not sure
what you mean by what it chooses. Are you talking about youtube instead of
YouTube TV?

~~~
sixothree
Youtube TV will continue to play shows after your current show ends. Seems to
be the default for multiple platforms.

~~~
tech-historian
This is the default for every streaming service I've ever used. Netflix, Hulu,
HBO, etc etc. Certainly not just a quirk of YTTV.

------
risfriend
India, did actually implement a regulation to let users pay for exactly what
they want to see to give the users an option other than the bundles provided
by carriers/aggregators. This was implemented from Feb, 2019
[https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/watching-
tv-...](https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/watching-tv-to-be-
cheaper-after-february-1-trai-dth-rules-allow-users-to-create-pay-per-channel-
plan-1427140-2019-01-09)

Also, from March of this year the price per channel was capped and even the
carriage fee has been capped to what the government agency deemed suitable -
[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/teleco...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/telecom-
policy/trai-lowers-cap-on-mrp-of-individual-
channels/articleshow/73063399.cms?from=mdr)

Though this can end up making the business for some cable TV companies
unsustainable, especially on the lower end of the spectrum - some of which
were already in losses.

------
brian-bk
Long ago, the internet streaming services lived in harmony. Then everything
changed when the Disney conglomerate attacked.

In all seriousness - I believe it really is pressure from Disney forcing their
competitors out, that's caused the faster acceleration of prices. It's
something that would have happened anyway, but it's more pronounced with such
a large behemoth of licensed content joining in to the fight.

~~~
echelon
Disney isn't forcing competitors out. There are more competitors now than
ever.

~~~
brian-bk
It's noted in the article, they're not forcing them out by direct competition.
Rather, their squeezing their competitors profit margins and forcing
competitors' prices up, but charging more prohibitive prices for content.

------
Waterluvian
I am convinced the pricing is all deflated to jockey for dominance and then
they’ll start raising them.

I pay $6.60USD per month for Disney+. No way that’s their par pricing. Why
would I ever buy my kids a Disney DVD or blu ray?

~~~
tjoff
So, $80 a year. How much did you spend on Disney before? (And how much was
left for Disney after everyone on the way had their cut taken).

~~~
CivBase
Streaming rentals are $3-$5 and Disney definitely doesn't come out with enough
content I'm interested in watching (much less re-watching) each year to
justify the service even at its current price. I suppose it might seem like a
more reasonable value if you have kids, re-watch a lot of their older stuff,
or actually care about any of their TV shows. But I'm not sure how much
further they can really push it with their current offerings.

~~~
chadash
> I suppose it might seem like a more reasonable value if you have kids

I'd be surprised if their strategy involved going after anyone BUT families
with kids.

~~~
schwartzworld
Disney+ has the entire star wars catalog, which I'm told some grownups like

------
vinni2
The only streaming service I subscribe to is Netflix and that is shared with 4
of our family members across 3 countries. I stopped watching live tv there is
no point anymore.

------
8fingerlouie
Media consumption is somewhat different here in Scandinavia, but while prices
on streaming services are increasing, i can still manage to buy both Netflix
and HBO Nordic (~$14 each) for less than the price of the smallest Linear TV
package, consisting of 5 free channels, and 4 paid channels ($40).

Add to that, that the linear tv channels spam me with commercials at a
frequency and duration so that it feels like the commercials is the content
(which is probably not far from the truth from a broadcasters perspective).

I'd say that the "breaking point" is around $20/month. After that it is no
longer possible for most people to have 3-5 streaming services, and there will
be a battle for customers, and we're going to see an increase in piracy again.

In Denmark (and possibly more European countries) you can get "streaming
bundles" with your mobile subscription with a 10%-20% discount. I.e. Telmore
([https://www.telmore.dk/](https://www.telmore.dk/)) offers a "Telmore Play"
bundle, consisting of unlimited/free calls/texts, 60GB data (of which 32 are
free for EU roaming), as well as Netflix, HBO Nordic, Viaplay and TV2 Play
(last 2 are danish/nordic). This bundle will cost you $52/month.

Upgrade it to $60/month and you also get unlimited data, a music streaming
service (Telmore Music) as well as Bookmate which is a "book streaming
service" (not really needed as public libraries are free and offer everything
as ebooks anyway)

As prices increase, i think we're going to see more and more deals like this.
Netflix etc. will be the new "middlemen" in the coming decades and have less
and less direct customers.

As to why it ended up being the cell companies distributing it, i can only
guess that the danish (nordic?) cell market was/is highly competetive, and for
the past 20 years prices have been downward spiraling. That has changed in the
last 5 years or so with prices starting to increase, but the amount of
goods/services offered increasing as well. It is no longer enough (in Denmark
at least) to simply offer more calling time/data, and we've arrived at
"unlimited" at <$50/month.

------
orisho
Because they now offer more content, at a higher quality, with greater
convenience than when they first started. It is also perceived as high value
socially, something you should obviously have. This wasn't always the case,
and the price had to be lower to reflect that - or some people would not pay
it.

I'm sure before Netflix raises prices, they ask themselves the question "what
% of our subscriber base will we lose, and how much will it hurt the growth
rate?"

Presumably, they also do some research. For Netflix, previous subscribers were
slowly grandfathered in to the new prices, while new subscriptions paid the
full price immediately. I imagine that allowed them to measure the impact on
growth and churn before affecting their entire user base, allowing them to
reverse the change if they saw it was a big mistake.

Since they haven't reversed the change, one can only assume that it didn't
have a big enough effect to justify keeping the previous pricing. Ergo, people
consider it to be worth the money. I know I do.

Finally, presumably they arrived at the previous price point by playing with
prices, content and advertising until they arrived at a sufficiently large
growth rate, so they were at the right price for that time. But many variables
have changed since.

------
toohotatopic
The article explains that the prices go up because the carriers rise prices so
that the steaming services have to follow suit. What this doesn't explain is
why the market accepts those prices.

Why is there such a demand for the carrier channels? Shouldn't youtube and
twitch channels and other content providers increase supply to the point that
people don't care about the content that they can get from the carriers?

Are those prices sustainable for the next generation or are carriers milking
old customers who just have switched the medium but won't switch content?

On the other hand, with phones going for $1,000+, there is enough money
available to be spent. What's the upper overall limit on money that is spent
on streaming and entertainment? If people can afford to spend $200 per month
on entertainment, it's not unreasonable for streaming services to go for a
$100 share.

------
pnw_hazor
My plan was to have two streaming subscriptions at any one time. One is Amazon
Prime, that only leaves one slot. I cancelled Netflix over a year ago,
intending to buy HBO for a while. Somehow, I never got around to it.

Though lately it helps that my daughter is home from college now because of
the pandemic. She seems to have access to just about every service. (Sharing
accounts with friends)

We did watch The Mandalorian via my other daughter's ex-boyfriend's account. I
felt a little dirty doing that because they just broke up and his heart was
broken.

Between sub $10.00 video games on Steam or GOG, Youtube, and Amazon Prime, it
seems silly to pay for more services.

------
dang
Recent and related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23693407](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23693407)

~~~
toohotatopic
"YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99"

------
tmaly
I do not know a single person paying YouTube $65 a month. I had a friend that
was buying YouTube without the ads, but I am not sure if that is the same
thing.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
The only situation I can think of where that makes sense is if you have a
really fast fiber connection to the Internet but no cable at all, and really
want the equivalent of cable TV.

If I'm getting my Internet through Comcast and really want cable TV that bad I
might as well go through them and take advantage of the bundles.

------
fallingfrog
Probably because of the loss of net neutrality, they are having to give a
bigger and bigger cut to the cable companies.

------
pmontra
I'd love pay per view. I'd give them 1 Euro per view and at the end of the
month I could even spend more than a monthly subscription, or zero.
Unfortunately none of the streaming services sells this product and I'm not
subscribing any of them.

~~~
em-bee
that sounds about right. from my own usage experience i found that i'd be
wiling to pay about $1 per movie, and half for a tv episode.

i could also live with a system that costs $30 per month but caps the hours i
can watch to say, 60. that's 2 hours per day. that would be enough.

now of course with that in mind, i should be willing to pay more for each
family member, and then $60/month don't look so bad anymore. however, i'd
still want to get all available tv channels for that, and not just a selection

------
sbmthakur
How much it would cost me per month if I am to subscribe to the top three
streaming services in the US?

------
donclark
Content wars.

------
ponker
Don’t know why a person needs more than one streaming service. How much TV
does a person need to watch?

~~~
capsulecorp
I don't know that one NEEDS to watch any TV. Then again you don't NEED to be
on the internet or hacker news. People also do things they want, not just what
they need.

~~~
tialaramex
You do _need_ access to the Network to participate in human society. Currently
the Internet is the Network. Historically the PSTN was the Network and before
that (and to some extent in parallel) the global postal system was the
Network.

Now participating in society isn't as immediately necessary as air, water, or
food, but just staying physically alive isn't really enough for people. They
seek meaning in their lives and emotional connections to others, by
participating in human society. The Network enables that.

A programme to deliver Network access to everybody who wants it and hasn't
gone out of their way to live somewhere crazy makes at least as much sense for
a rich industrialised nation as a programme to build sewers, or to demand safe
housing for its people.

Fortunately if you want television the Network delivers that too.

