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Similar situation here in the UK. Disney+ initially available at what I considered a fair price, and now they want to hike it by something like 50% - which see

Similar situation here in the UK. Disney+ initially available at what I considered a fair price, and now they want to hike it by something like 50% - which seems totally unreasonable. Furthermore, it seems like so much more content now is not included in the monthly fee - they want to extract even more money from us! And I take issue with the actual pricing here too, for example Mulan was a whopping £20 - for comparison, an adult cinema ticket is around £10! So again, this feels totally unfair and unjustified. Disney is meant to be about "fun", but I don't think we'll be renewing, because, frankly, they are taking the piss and making me hate the service.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
> Furthermore, it seems like so much more content now is not included in the monthly fee - they want to extract even more money from us! And I take issue with the actual pricing here too, for example Mulan was a whopping £20 - for comparison, an adult cinema ticket is around £10! So again, this feels totally unfair and unjustified. That's not surprising. What if there's more than one person watching the stream? > Disney is meant to be about "fun" multiple decades ago, maybe
- xattt 5y ago
  The problem was solved decades earlier: an FBI Warning at the start saying the screen can only be viewed by one member of a household at a time.
- GordonS 5y ago
  > That's not surprising. What if there's more than one person watching the stream? So what if there is? I'm watching at home, using my TV - it is nowhere close to a "cinema experience", I'm already paying a monthly fee, and I don't believe I've ever seen any streaming rental as expensive as £20 before. So, it was certainly a surprise to me!
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    > I'm watching at home, using my TV - it is nowhere close to a "cinema experience" To replicate the cinema experience, for another €20 you could pay some kids to kick your seat and rustle chip packets, then turn the volume up to unbearable and play 35 mins of adverts before the movie.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    Disney doesn't give a shit. Disney cares about the opportunity cost of other sales approaches.
- mnw21cam 5y ago
  It is surprising when the price ceiling for DVDs of recent highly-rated films in the supermarket is £10, and blu-ray is £15.
  - astura 5y ago
    Yep, and you can watch the DVD or Blu-ray and sell it for a few pounds.
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    Traditionally, home video and cinema were two segregated markets. The reason why you paid 10 pounds for that DVD is because the film is a few months old. If you wanted to see it at release date you were paying the same price per person, per view.
Mindwipe 5y ago
> Disney+ initially available at what I considered a fair price It was a completely unsustainable predatory price aimed at making initial marketshare. Disney+'s price target is roughly £30 per month... As is Netflix's.
- GordonS 5y ago
  I would respectfully disagree - the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me. I see Disney+ as an "add on" streaming service - something you might get on top off either NetFlix or Amazon Prime, and as such I'd expect to stream far less content from Disney+. Even with 2 young kids, this has indeed been the case.
  - chongli 5y ago
    the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me Sustainable in terms of maintaining the same old catalogue indefinitely? Or sustainable enough to finance new films and series? That's the problem. The existing catalogue costs almost nothing to stream while new shows cost a ton to produce.
    - extrapickles 5y ago
      Creating content is somewhat expensive, but not unreasonably so for their subscriber counts. A live action TV show costs $3-15 million to produce. They have ~116 million subscribers. If they “invest” $2/subscriber/month into new content, that means they can make 15-77 new episodes per month (a film could be considered to take up several episode slots).
      - chongli 5y ago
        Shang-Chi cost $150-200 million. Avengers: Infinity War cost double that. That’s just two of the many films they’ve produced over the past few years. Look at their upcoming schedule for Phase 4 [1]. It’s extremely aggressive! And that’s just Marvel cinematic universe films. It doesn’t include Star Wars or Pixar or any mainline Disney films, nor does it include any TV series. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Phase_Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Pha...
lunatuna 5y ago
My approach now is to rotate. We keep Crave which has HBO and Showtime. We paused Disney and Netflix and will turn back on, watch for a few months to catch-up on Tiger Kings or Wandavision. You can cut a lot of your costs and not have to torrent. Just keeping the subscription going doesn’t seem to be good value.
- _nalply 5y ago
  Wait till they make that loophole unpractical.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    How?
    - _nalply 5y ago
      For example by disallowing suspending the account more than once a year or completely. Another way, if someone is trying to cancel a second time (instead of suspending) they start security theater («Your behavior is suspicious, we need to make really really sure that it's you who want to cancel»).
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    A lot of the big titans in the streaming biz are already whinging about account sharing[0], so I wouldn't be surprised if they start complaining that people aren't "committed" enough to their streams as well, too. It'd be way easier to cut down on stream cycling than account sharing, too - just jack up the monthly price and make the annual price cheaper. [0] which is particularly rich because they sell multi-stream plans that are almost practically built for it
    - AndrewThrowaway 5y ago
      Can easily imagine yearly subscription becoming $120 and monthly something like $29.
- 5y ago
Mindwipe 5y ago
> Furthermore, it seems like so much more content now is not included in the monthly fee Disney literally haven't done any Premier Access titles in months now that cinemas have reopened. Disney+ was always a service aimed at taking over the pay television market - and pay television was always roughly a year behind the theatrical release. They did a small run of (pretty cheap) extra paid releases while no cinemas were open, but that has now ended.

spywaregorilla 5y ago

> Furthermore, it seems like so much more content now is not included in the monthly fee - they want to extract even more money from us! And I take issue with the actual pricing here too, for example Mulan was a whopping £20 - for comparison, an adult cinema ticket is around £10! So again, this feels totally unfair and unjustified. That's not surprising. What if there's more than one person watching the stream? > Disney is meant to be about "fun" multiple decades ago, maybe

xattt 5y ago
The problem was solved decades earlier: an FBI Warning at the start saying the screen can only be viewed by one member of a household at a time.
GordonS 5y ago
> That's not surprising. What if there's more than one person watching the stream? So what if there is? I'm watching at home, using my TV - it is nowhere close to a "cinema experience", I'm already paying a monthly fee, and I don't believe I've ever seen any streaming rental as expensive as £20 before. So, it was certainly a surprise to me!
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > I'm watching at home, using my TV - it is nowhere close to a "cinema experience" To replicate the cinema experience, for another €20 you could pay some kids to kick your seat and rustle chip packets, then turn the volume up to unbearable and play 35 mins of adverts before the movie.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Disney doesn't give a shit. Disney cares about the opportunity cost of other sales approaches.
mnw21cam 5y ago
It is surprising when the price ceiling for DVDs of recent highly-rated films in the supermarket is £10, and blu-ray is £15.
- astura 5y ago
  Yep, and you can watch the DVD or Blu-ray and sell it for a few pounds.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Traditionally, home video and cinema were two segregated markets. The reason why you paid 10 pounds for that DVD is because the film is a few months old. If you wanted to see it at release date you were paying the same price per person, per view.

Mindwipe 5y ago

> Disney+ initially available at what I considered a fair price It was a completely unsustainable predatory price aimed at making initial marketshare. Disney+'s price target is roughly £30 per month... As is Netflix's.

GordonS 5y ago
I would respectfully disagree - the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me. I see Disney+ as an "add on" streaming service - something you might get on top off either NetFlix or Amazon Prime, and as such I'd expect to stream far less content from Disney+. Even with 2 young kids, this has indeed been the case.
- chongli 5y ago
  the pricing felt fair, yet sustainable to me Sustainable in terms of maintaining the same old catalogue indefinitely? Or sustainable enough to finance new films and series? That's the problem. The existing catalogue costs almost nothing to stream while new shows cost a ton to produce.
  - extrapickles 5y ago
    Creating content is somewhat expensive, but not unreasonably so for their subscriber counts. A live action TV show costs $3-15 million to produce. They have ~116 million subscribers. If they “invest” $2/subscriber/month into new content, that means they can make 15-77 new episodes per month (a film could be considered to take up several episode slots).
    - chongli 5y ago
      Shang-Chi cost $150-200 million. Avengers: Infinity War cost double that. That’s just two of the many films they’ve produced over the past few years. Look at their upcoming schedule for Phase 4 [1]. It’s extremely aggressive! And that’s just Marvel cinematic universe films. It doesn’t include Star Wars or Pixar or any mainline Disney films, nor does it include any TV series. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Phase_Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Pha...

lunatuna 5y ago

My approach now is to rotate. We keep Crave which has HBO and Showtime. We paused Disney and Netflix and will turn back on, watch for a few months to catch-up on Tiger Kings or Wandavision. You can cut a lot of your costs and not have to torrent. Just keeping the subscription going doesn’t seem to be good value.

_nalply 5y ago
Wait till they make that loophole unpractical.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  How?
  - _nalply 5y ago
    For example by disallowing suspending the account more than once a year or completely. Another way, if someone is trying to cancel a second time (instead of suspending) they start security theater («Your behavior is suspicious, we need to make really really sure that it's you who want to cancel»).
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  A lot of the big titans in the streaming biz are already whinging about account sharing[0], so I wouldn't be surprised if they start complaining that people aren't "committed" enough to their streams as well, too. It'd be way easier to cut down on stream cycling than account sharing, too - just jack up the monthly price and make the annual price cheaper. [0] which is particularly rich because they sell multi-stream plans that are almost practically built for it
  - AndrewThrowaway 5y ago
    Can easily imagine yearly subscription becoming $120 and monthly something like $29.
5y ago

Mindwipe 5y ago

> Furthermore, it seems like so much more content now is not included in the monthly fee Disney literally haven't done any Premier Access titles in months now that cinemas have reopened. Disney+ was always a service aimed at taking over the pay television market - and pay television was always roughly a year behind the theatrical release. They did a small run of (pretty cheap) extra paid releases while no cinemas were open, but that has now ended.