9 ms·

“Huge cable bills” - we’re already back there. Netflix is $23, Apple TV just increased to $10c Disney+ is now $14, Hulu is $20, Max is $16, Paramount is $10, Pe

by Osiris 3y ago

“Huge cable bills” - we’re already back there. Netflix is $23, Apple TV just increased to $10c Disney+ is now $14, Hulu is $20, Max is $16, Paramount is $10, Peacock is $6. You can easily spend $100 /mn on streaming services.

ghaff 3y ago
Prices have been creeping up (and Netflix is the worst offender). But, if you can live without live TV and can do without that one show on such and such a service, it's still a pretty good deal relative to the cable TV bundle especially if you also had one or two premium stations/streaming services like HBO.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  $7.99 in 2010 is $11.27 today. The remaining $4.22 delta is reasonable given that their business model has changed from purely licensing with zero competition to being locked out of popular content and forced to produce their own.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Oh, I understand the reasons. It's just one of services where my monthly payments are yellow to red on my radar. I keep them but it's on the bubble.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And now the actors unions and writers unions are going to get more money from streaming.
bmy78 3y ago
No one says you have to subscribe to ALL of the streaming platforms at once. If cost is an issue, pick 1 or 2 services, watch the shows you’re interested in, then cancel those and pick 1 or 2. Rince and repeat. You have choice with this approach and you don’t need every service offered.
- slovette 3y ago
  While perhaps a nominal iteration of improvement, cable was this way too. You didn’t have to have the $100 /month service package. There was always the $30 /mo basic cable (no guide box). The industry simply recycling its business model in new delivery methods is a valid complaint/perception.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I didn't have a guide box--had a TiVo from pretty early on--and I was still over $100/month before my HBO monthly fee.
  - hatsix 3y ago
    the last base package I subscribed to was $80
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    The problem with cable was you couldn't have 'basic cable + FX' or 'basic + AMC' it was $30 for lame selection of mostly crap and then $80 - $100 for anything better.
  - nullindividual 3y ago
    But! With cable, if you didn't buy the upper tier packages, you may have missed out on some great shows/networks (e.g., HBO). And cable companies often use contracts to make downgrading expensive. With streaming services, cancelling after you've binge watch the shows you're interested in comes with no penalty.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - pianoben 3y ago
      > cancelling after you've binge watch the shows you're interested in comes with no penalty. ...for now. We'll certainly see these kinds of shenanigans before too much longer. Take ads. They're creeping in to paid subscriptions now - despite the fact that an allure of online streaming is that you can pay not to see them. Where there's the possibility of a revenue play, it will happen eventually.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
And the commercials are coming within a decade.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Disney + just added them to the plan I already paid for the next 12 months for when it didn’t have ads and I had no idea they were a part of the deal
hadlock 3y ago
How much TV do you watch??? If we're lucky we can squeeze 90 minutes a day in before bed. We have netflix, get prime video free with prime, and now that we have a toddler, we have Disney+. That's about $40 but there are NO ADS. If it's not on Netflix of Prime (or Disney+) we just don't watch it. There aren't enough hours in the day to go explore random series on Hulu, Paramount, Peacock. HBO Max has been a fucking disaster of a service for several years and runs like garbage on my TV. We cancelled it days after Game of Thrones ended.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I'm in the same boat. I maybe average an hour per day. I probably subscribe to at least one more service than I would if I were really optimizing. There's very little that I feel that I really need to watch. And I can always buy a la carte or even buy a DVD. I do without live TV but that's OK. I canceled my cable TV when I realized I hadn't watched anything on my TiVo in over two months.

by Osiris 3y ago

ghaff 3y ago

Prices have been creeping up (and Netflix is the worst offender). But, if you can live without live TV and can do without that one show on such and such a service, it's still a pretty good deal relative to the cable TV bundle especially if you also had one or two premium stations/streaming services like HBO.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
$7.99 in 2010 is $11.27 today. The remaining $4.22 delta is reasonable given that their business model has changed from purely licensing with zero competition to being locked out of popular content and forced to produce their own.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Oh, I understand the reasons. It's just one of services where my monthly payments are yellow to red on my radar. I keep them but it's on the bubble.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And now the actors unions and writers unions are going to get more money from streaming.

bmy78 3y ago

No one says you have to subscribe to ALL of the streaming platforms at once. If cost is an issue, pick 1 or 2 services, watch the shows you’re interested in, then cancel those and pick 1 or 2. Rince and repeat. You have choice with this approach and you don’t need every service offered.

slovette 3y ago
While perhaps a nominal iteration of improvement, cable was this way too. You didn’t have to have the $100 /month service package. There was always the $30 /mo basic cable (no guide box). The industry simply recycling its business model in new delivery methods is a valid complaint/perception.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I didn't have a guide box--had a TiVo from pretty early on--and I was still over $100/month before my HBO monthly fee.
- hatsix 3y ago
  the last base package I subscribed to was $80
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  The problem with cable was you couldn't have 'basic cable + FX' or 'basic + AMC' it was $30 for lame selection of mostly crap and then $80 - $100 for anything better.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  But! With cable, if you didn't buy the upper tier packages, you may have missed out on some great shows/networks (e.g., HBO). And cable companies often use contracts to make downgrading expensive. With streaming services, cancelling after you've binge watch the shows you're interested in comes with no penalty.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pianoben 3y ago
    > cancelling after you've binge watch the shows you're interested in comes with no penalty. ...for now. We'll certainly see these kinds of shenanigans before too much longer. Take ads. They're creeping in to paid subscriptions now - despite the fact that an allure of online streaming is that you can pay not to see them. Where there's the possibility of a revenue play, it will happen eventually.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

And the commercials are coming within a decade.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
Disney + just added them to the plan I already paid for the next 12 months for when it didn’t have ads and I had no idea they were a part of the deal

hadlock 3y ago

How much TV do you watch??? If we're lucky we can squeeze 90 minutes a day in before bed. We have netflix, get prime video free with prime, and now that we have a toddler, we have Disney+. That's about $40 but there are NO ADS. If it's not on Netflix of Prime (or Disney+) we just don't watch it. There aren't enough hours in the day to go explore random series on Hulu, Paramount, Peacock. HBO Max has been a fucking disaster of a service for several years and runs like garbage on my TV. We cancelled it days after Game of Thrones ended.

ghaff 3y ago
I'm in the same boat. I maybe average an hour per day. I probably subscribe to at least one more service than I would if I were really optimizing. There's very little that I feel that I really need to watch. And I can always buy a la carte or even buy a DVD. I do without live TV but that's OK. I canceled my cable TV when I realized I hadn't watched anything on my TiVo in over two months.