No comment on responsibility or culpability. But, "I want everything for $9 that used to cost $99" is an unreasonable expectation. People paying for cable and satellite are paying way more than the cost of even 5 of these unbundled services. And pay for tv still has commercials. These direct from content producer unbundled apps are still significantly cheaper than the old world. People's expectation of what content should cost seems to be shaped by "I want everything cable does but for the price of netflix." Thats not a delivery volume or price point that ever existed, anywhere.
“I want everything for $9 that used to cost $99” is perfectly reasonable in markets where technology has dramatically lowered costs. It’s certainly what I expect when buying computer hardware, but it should also apply to the market for distributing films that have already been made. If the service you want is the ability to watch one movie a week from a huge catalogue, streaming technology has brought the cost of delivering the service way down, but the cost to the consumer has gone up compared to DVD rental!
Is it really? The amount of people willing (and able) to pay today 10-20 is likely ten times the people who paid 100-200 in previous generation. You see the same in gaming and film, where you have many many more consumers today than you had 30 years ago, and still they complain about “piracy is killing industry”, while their profits are through the roof.
It's also worth mentioning that these services are very big outside the US. Premium (cable) TV was never such a big thing in other countries, and those where it was somewhat popular never charged as much as the US.
