The TV streaming apps broke their promises, and now they’re jacking up prices

soyagi@yiffit.net to Technology@lemmy.world – 519 points – The TV streaming apps broke their promises, and now they’re jacking up prices
arstechnica.com

For a moment, it seemed like the streaming apps were the things that could save us from the hegemony of cable TV—a system where you had to pay for a ton of stuff you didn't want to watch so you could see the handful of things you were actually interested in.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/K4EIh

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It sucks for consumers...

It sucks for writers...

It sucks for actors...

It sucks for vfx workers...

And the CEOs running the companies and making all the money claims it sucks for them too because after their last couple years of shit decisions, they're making slightly less money.

So maybe those shareholders should re-evaulte who their CEOs are?

Maybe get rid of the people who killed the Golden Goose because they wanted to eat it?

If they’re not losing money, shareholders do not care. The end goal of a corporation is to maximize profits for the shareholders within the confines of the law. So until they start actually costing shareholders substantial amounts of money they will do nothing.

The end goal of a corporation is to maximize profits for the shareholders within the confines of the law.

And if the fine is greater than the profit, or they don't get caught, that's okay too.

Yep. It’s easier to just break the law, pay the fine, and continue making billions over actually stopping the activity that causes the fine. That’s what happens when it’s almost impossible to hold anyone actually personally responsible force actions of a corporation.

In a way it would be really nice if you couldn't sell short term stocks and there were minimum holding periods of 1 to 3 years based on the company metrics. That alone would flip a lot of these quarterly incentives, heck quarterly earnings calls themselves would probably be less frequent. Even if you had to register the sale 6 months in advance would solve a lot in my opinion. But of course again, that would destroy the entire finance industry as we know it.

I gave them a chance. They collectively became more & more rapacious & greedy.

Back to sailing the high seas.

I’ve set sail on the high seas again for the first time in like 15 years.

Streaming was great when Netflix launched, convenient and affordable - I remember being excited when Netflix finally launched in my country. Was only a matter of time before all would turn to shit with every tv network/producer launching their own streaming services and fragmenting all that content.

Yeah Netflix worked because you had everything there and no strings attached.

Now Netflix is shit, hbo is meh, Disney plus is more expensive than sky etc etc

Fuck'em

Hbo will be cancelled the moment they rebrand it to max and add all that bullshit content in my country.

No dance of dragons can prevent that.

Atm there are only 2 streaming services which still hold real value: prime video and Netflix. Disney+ just doesn't cut it. We get 3 worthwhile serious a year. Hbo doesn't cut it. We got 3 worthwhile series this last year (last of us, dance of dragons and the white lotus) and they removed Westworld and raised by wolves.

In my country we also have sky/showtime about which I'm on the fence. The star trek catalog is incomplete, some series are nice but there still are technical difficulties. If/when they raise the price I will cancel that in a heartbeat too.

Appletv has quality content just not enough to justify a year long subscription.

D+ is amazing in Canada (and likely most of the world outside of the US). We have most Hulu content.

Yeah, well I already got my boat in the water since the account sharing announcement from Netflix. I'm sure many more will do the same in the coming months.

I guess I never stopped. Still have subs though, but might cancel that somewhere in the future.

I still have Netflix, but only because they still haven't bothered me about account sharing. The moment they do, It's going away.

Didn’t their subscriber count go up fairly dramatically after the restrictions started?

The difference back then was Netflix launched steaming was that it was free extra money for TV producers. Cable subs were strong and the TV providers were happy to take extra cash from Netflix to let them stream. Netflix income was icing on the cake. As people cut cable out, streaming is the cake. So you need to charge the price of the cake. There was never an end game where streaming would be cheaper than cable. It was a change of pipes to deliver the content, but was not intended to change the value or cost of TV.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Discovery's David Zaslav have also indicated that their services were initially priced "too low" in an effort to draw a huge and unendingly expanding subscriber base.

In the early-to-mid 2010s, a subscription to Netflix and Hulu and your friend’s borrowed HBO password could get you access to the vast majority of all the TV that was worth watching.

Netflix had a huge archive of older shows plus a slowly growing library of its buzzy releases like Orange Is the New Black, Jessica Jones, and Stranger Things.

Not content to let Netflix have what looked like a lucrative new market all to itself the companies that made and distributed TV decided one by one as the decade wore on that it was time to create their own apps and generate their own subscription revenue.

Tech companies also decided to jump in, with Amazon Prime Video pushing into expensive scripted dramas and Apple TV+ becoming relevant by dint of throwing untold gobs of money at all kinds of projects.

Netflix announced its first subscriber loss in a decade in early 2022, cratering its stock; despite some recovery, it's still only worth about two-thirds what it was at its peak in late 2021.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I am happy to steal from corporations. Been doing it all my life and I will never stop. Fuck em.

Things you never hear people say: I couldn't sleep last night worrying about corporate profit margins because I stole some of it. It's the least culpable crime in history.

At this point, the best way to go (besides sailing) is to subscribe to one or two services at a time, cancelling others month-to-month based on what you want to watch.

We need an app that lets you search for content across all platforms and easily cancel and start subscriptions - queueing them up and helping you easily limit the amount you’re paying monthly.

But with these prices, it’s worth doing that manually.

Right now it's smart to cycle through but I wouldn't be surprised if that is the next thing to go.

What I could see happening is they keep raising monthly prices until the math doesn't work out of them. Then they'll introduce a small discount for locking in multiple months (3,6,12mon). Both will continue to rise in price but month to month will be quicker.

Or straight-up contracts. But I think the next step will be more slow-dripping content.

Netflix just pulled an obvious one by splitting the Witcher season 3 to the release half at the end of June and the other at the end of July. They claim it was for “an effective cliffhanger” but it’s clear they just wanted to squeeze one extra payment out of its viewers who aren’t interested in their other content. Paramount meanwhile stretches all of their Star Trek series out across the entire year.

I imagine platforms will start slow-releasing more of their most popular originals. I wouldn’t put it past them to flood social media with spoilers to punish anyone who’s waiting. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing one episode per month someday.

Disney+ (at least in Canada) gives a 15% discount if you pay for a year up-front.

Here's how that will go:

Each streaming service will release their own aggregator app. Each of these will have a fee associated with them. Each of these will have certain services they don't work with because the lawyers are still fighting over things. Each of these will eventually reduce their search coverage and promote their own content. "You searched for Star Trek, would you like Star Wars instead?"

Even if an open source third party wrote something that did this, companies would change their API pricing or authentication to break it so people don't leave their walled gardens.

Companies are incapable of making a service that doesn't eventually enshittify.

A third party app can just scrape catalogues, and then direct you to the platform’s website through an integrated browser to manage each account. They can push notifications when a subscription is about to be renewed just by remembering when you subscribed, and send reminders to cancel and subscribe to the next service in your queue.

The streaming companies won’t hide their catalogues because that’s how many people find what they want to watch through simple web searches, e.g. “Where to stream Barry” or “when does the new season of x come out?” The app could pull metadata from other sites for graphics and info like many already do.

It wouldn’t be as convenient as flipping a switch which would require proper API and probably login info, but seeing everything and managing it from one place would still help a lot.

I think a bigger danger would be platforms countering by requiring phone calls to cancel, or contracts, or slow-dripping content over months to keep you subscribed (some already do the latter.) IOW continuing to become more like cable.

I will forever wonder how these companies actively choose $0/mo over a cut of $XX/mo and everyone in the decision chain thinks it's the right decision.

Because your 0$ per month after dropping them doesn't hurt their bottom line.

Corporations generally weigh the risks and the benefit often wins out and they make more money because there are enough people that either reluctantly cave into the fee increase, forgot about their subscription or just don't care that it's going up.

It's fairly seldom (but seems to be increasing over the years) to see so much backlash that a company walks back on what they were planning to do.

My favorite example of the reverse in recent memory has been Wizards of the Coast essentially going back completely and then some on their unpopular OGL changes after a significant portion of their DnD Beyond members canceled their subscriptions.

Everyone thinks they're better at making business decisions than the financial analysts at major corporations lol

Yeah, these changes suck for the customers (/ex-customers) but do you really think that was a big part of the equation? They do not care about you and the research says they will make more money increasing the cost despite the backlash. And they're almost definitely right.

Pretty good evidence towards breaking up the production and distribution segments if the industry.

Sounds like a good time to cancel a subscription and finish the ol' Steam library

I am going to need more gaming PCs to keep the family engaged in the post streaming world. Not sure how I am going to do it. Even finding space for them is going to be a challenge.

Let me introduce you to the wonderful world of steam deck

I've never threw away my jolly roger, it's just safely hidden away

If companies are so adamant in both raising prices to the point of unaffordability, and making alternate routes to enjoy their art illegal, then what we should collectively do is to just go without them, maybe use that free time and money for something more useful than art.

According to CNN article, in a recent earnings call Bob Iger indicated that ad-supported streaming is a better revenue stream for them than ad-free subscriptions. So they're apparently raising prices on ad-free subscriptions to get people to drop down to ad-supported.

Some people can't stand advertising and will turn off rather than sit through it. I have been ad blocking and ad skipping for 20 years. I am not going to change my habits. The alternative is piracy. I don't want to go back to piracy. It is a superior product in many ways but it isn't sustainable and I want a fair share of my subscriptions to fund creative jobs (not that that is happening). There are a lot of shows I can't stream or buy digitally here that are only available via the black market which is crazy in 2023 when streaming was supposed to fix this. We have companies taking shows off their services to claim tax writeoffs now at a time when the market is fragmented and overpriced.

The super rich and powerful think we are livestock to lead to slaughter and often they aren't wrong. The sensible thing is for consumers is to walk away (same for X, Facebook, Reddit and all the other time wasters) and let the whole thing burn down and hope that whatever replaces it learns from the mistakes and greed. Unfortunately I don't think enough will to make a difference.

Yep. When it comes to dealing with these types of things, if it is something that can be lived without, the only winning play is to take your ball and go home.

If you’re not willing to go without watching tv, movies, playing new games, etc then these companies already own you.

Personally, I won’t go back to pirating their content. That implies what they make has more value to me than it actually does. If they make it nearly impossible to legally consume their product or service then I will take that as a sign they don’t really want to sell it and move on.

If the masses want to see change, then they should do likewise. Even if it doesn’t change the world, there is real power for a persons mental well being in always being willing to walk away.

I say we bring back running down the sidewalk with a stick in your neighbor's fence.

The only reason I have Netflix is because I get it through T-Mobile as a last resort. Fuck the state of streaming content. Raise the pirate flag boys!

Currently paying for YouTube ad-free, Netflix ad-free, and Hulu ad-free.

YouTube's algorithm seems intent on making me look elsewhere for content, as it suggests the same twenty things over and over again, despite the fact that I've watched half of them already and ignored the other half for months now. We only keep it because spouse wants it for YouTube music. Me? I've wandered off to piped and peertube, mostly.

The Netflix app locks up and crashes the Roku at least once every movie. It used to do this just now and again, but recently it's so bad I don't even load it anymore and spouse is THIS CLOSE to being talked into just cancelling it.

Hulu..? Well, it's ok. I wish it still had a lot of the older stuff, as a lot of the newer stuff is just stupid and/or revolting. Because of the above, we'd probably keep this one and dump the others, based on price and what (mostly spouse) finds useful to watch.

I'm actually checking out other things. Like Hoopla through the local library, eBooks, real books (the local library is free). Spouse and I have also learned to play several different card games, and sometimes we actually interact with each other instead of alpha-wave mind-bending into the electronic hallucination machine on the other side of the living room. We're also exploring more outdoor activities, like hiking, birding, nature walks, team sports, and so on.

Sometimes, a "bad" thing is just the right thing that needs to happen.

despite the fact that I’ve watched half of them already and ignored the other half for months now

What's up with that anyway? You don't have to have a fancy algorithm to not show me the things I've watched already!

Also congrats on finding new hobbies. Sometimes we forget that there's life outside of screens. Or perhaps not many have the energy for anything beyond staring at the black mirror.

We've all got to find balance in our lives! Sounds like you're doing that! Wish more people would take this approach, if the streaming eco system no longer suits us we can simply choose to not participate, we don't NEED the entertainment they provide. That's the only way the product will improve, if we just continue paying for it what incentive do they have to improve the service?

just ordered a nice OTA antenna so I can watch my local channels, anything else needed will be purchased for exactly 1 month and then cancelled

I've also started looking at smaller streaming services like CuriosityStream and MagellanTV cause I'm more interested in documentaries and such instead of the latest weekly tv dramas

Can recommend Nebula if you're interested in explainer Youtube videos (they have other content, though afaik mostly explainers)

I didn't really like Nebula. I signed up and canceled my subscription before I even finished a single video. Almost everything is available on YouTube for free (albeit with ads if you don't have Youtube Premium) and it just didn't feel like they had enough content to be charging $5/month.

Well for the $5/month you get:

  • Videos earlier than on Youtube for most (i think) creators (the least valuable of the 3)
  • Exclusive bonus videos (this one i like, it varies what the exclusive is, but it is usually as high quality as the rest of the creators content)
  • The creators get paid much more (even if you have Youtube Premium). The payout of Nebula is like Spotify where Nebula (the company) takes 30% of money earned and then split the rest to the content creators based on watch time.

These 3 things are what I think make Nebula worth it for me, though it's fair if you don't think it's worth it to you (to each their own). Also, i don't how long ago you signed up but for me I think there's a good amount of content on Nebula (at least for the types of videos I watch)

I watch a lot of educational explainer content and I've thought about trying nebula. Who do you watch on there that you think makes it worth it?

Over the past few months, I’ve canceled my subscriptions to Audible, Disney+, Netflix, and appleTV. I still have Amazon Prime since it’s an annual subscription, but that’s it. It’s been a surprise to realize how much pressure I was feeling to consume all this content and how freeing it felt to just get rid of it all. I have a lot of audiobooks I haven’t gotten around to listening, and books I haven’t read yet. I can still watch stuff on Amazon and ahem other places if I want. But really, there has to be more to life than just endlessly binging tv shows.

Not that it doesn’t suck, but did everyone really think the industry was going to replace a $200/month cable subscription with $30 worth of streaming? Also consider streaming taking over theatre releases too.

It's also still only like less than 60 for five different services. And more then that is a little crazy. The average cable bill is like $83 and people who didn't have basic were paying like $200 as you said. If you wanted to buy all paid streaming services it would be ~$102 with ads, ~140 with ads. It's still cheaper and better than cable, that's why people haven't stopped paying.

Cable companies: You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me.

As someone who watches pretty much no movies or shows, I couldn't care less, but it's gonna be fun watching piracy shoot back up.

if it's not for sale on vudu i'm not watching it. the streaming companies can die off imo.

Do what i did and stop watching TV completely. I have watched maybe 10 hours of TV in the past 12 years.

Some of the greatest television ever made is coming out these days. Fuck that. Just build a piracy machine. Yar.

Yeah, i dont find tv to be worth my time. I always heard people talking about the hottest new thing and was like "meh" i dont care.

I didn't quite completely quit, but there's lot of other things to do than watch TV.