Streaming service costs ratcheting upward...

[Carmudgeon]

The Content Cartel has always been in control.

They're even more in control now that they have the ability to sell to consumers directly, and don't have to rely entirely on middlemen (cable cos and theater owners) to deliver their product. Comcast was smart to buy a studio of its own, NBCUni, so it could take advantage of vertical integration, and have a bargaining chip to use at the table with others.

A lot of money was spent to build that delivery infrastructure, and the business turned out to be harder and less profitable than they expected, but it will still benefit them in the long run.

It was costly, but necessary to establish footholds in the game, and now is the time to recoup some of that investment, rebalance the books, and test the limits of consumer price tolerance.

As soon as that pesky little injunction is flicked away, their partnership with the Sports Cartel can proceed and hoover up the dollars from that audience.

The middlemen can still pretend to fight, and engage in carriage disputes, but they'll still capitulate and then pass the increased costs onto their customers.

 

[alarmguy]

I posted about this a while back - its not new. Its sort of a game - get a teaser rate, then keep ratcheting it up.

I simply have started cancelling them in rotation. Sign up for a promo on one or two, run it for a while, cancel (when you go to cancel they will often offer to extend the teaser), rinse / repeat. Netflix / Hulu / Max / Disney/ Peacock. They all do it.

Also - watch on Thanksgiving - there will be lots of 6 month promo / teaser rates for varios streaming. I am still paying $2.99 a month for Hulu / Disney with adds. We don't watch either much - but for $2.99 its ok.

Ever since Disney took full control of Hulu the amount of advertisements while watching movies has become intolerable. We only watched it for a movie every once in a while

We did the yearly $1 or $2 Hulu promotions a month for the year a while now at every Thanksgiving but no more. I cancelled it this month. So we are left with Netflex, and not so great Paramount Plus (comes with Walmart +) and daughter shares Max with us but rarely watch it.

Lately watched a few good older movies with not a bad amount of ads on free “Fawesome Movies”

If I see any low price special on Apple TV this holiday I’ll pick it up OR anything else like Peacock but no more Hulu. We have a number of Apple services and one of their new packages might make their pay TV feasible. In the past we also had Hulu type promotions on Apple but not this year.

Typically pick up Prime free or close to it around Thanksgiving for 30 to 60 days at little to no cost, mainly for the 2day shipping but we do watch prime with that.

We have been streaming for gosh well over a decade now using Roku boxes. Love the Freedom can’t watch all that is offered. Also OTA with a Channel Master box to record but haven’t set any OTA in the new house yet.

We also stream rental movies on occasion for something we really want to see a few times a year @ $6 We used to get Red Box DVDs but Red Box is dead to us.

We really enjoy movies at night. Mostly weekend thing and occasionally a couple times a week. The cost is pennies that we spend compared for pay TV to what I see posted in here at less than $25 or around a month.

 

[alarmguy]

The Content Cartel has always been in control.

They're even more in control now that they have the ability to sell to consumers directly, and don't have to rely entirely on middlemen (cable cos and theater owners) to deliver their product. Comcast was smart to buy a studio of its own, NBCUni, so it could take advantage of vertical integration, and have a bargaining chip to use at the table with others.

A lot of money was spent to build that delivery infrastructure, and the business turned out to be harder and less profitable than they expected, but it will still benefit them in the long run.
…

Wife and I are in complete control. Not the cartel.
Cut the cable roughly 15 years ago. Roku players for that entire time with OTA that works like pay TV boxes.

TV/ movie entertainment cost has been roughly less than $25 a month since. Loyal to no one.
Netflex ad free is the one constant now at $15 a month

 

[alarmguy]

Streaming is turning itself back into cable and honestly maybe even more expensive than even cable.

Yes, it’s amazing how corporations extract people’s income. It’s actually physiological science.
Good news is this keeps them in business and the shareholders happy while wife and I pick up the deals and have never spent more than $25 a month for the last 15 years. We enjoy a lot of movies too.

I have no problem in the way people enjoy spending their income, we ourselves live well but spending what others spend on TV is not our thing as we can’t possibly watch everything available at $25 a month.
We enjoy making the most of our resources.

That goes for internet as well, people pay for excess speed that they never can use, same as paying for TV programming that they have so much of they can’t use all of it either.

Choice is good, free to choose, pay or not is up to the individual. It’s not a requirement to pay unless one wants to.

 

[John105]

It's not a game. It's the same business model everything uses. Operate at a loss for an indeterminate amount of time on VC money. Grow as much as possible. Return to profit later. Everyone is always upset when this happens because they have been dosed on something seemingly too good to be true.

Very interesting and would appear to be true. We've had Verizon FiOS since 2009, it used to be every 2 years, renew at a reasonable price, and get anywhere from $200 to $400 to do so. Now the price is really high and no incentive to renew into a contract. Same thing with say the McDonald's app--anyone remember 2015, when you basically could get something free every single day? There were large sandwiches free with a $0 purchase, i.e. free. Now, something can be free with a $2 purchase, and since nothing is $2, it's essentially a $3 purchase. As if people were "trained" to use the app, then deals removed. We should feel fortunate I suppose to be grandfathered into the past. For me off the top of my head, one car seems to have XM for life, so when I see what people consider a good deal, I cringe, that's way more than free. The other is a 5% permanent rewards gas card, so no rotating categories for us when it comes to gasoline.

 

[CKN]

Yes, it’s amazing how corporations extract people’s income. It’s actually physiological science.
Good news is this keeps them in business and the shareholders happy while wife and I pick up the deals and have never spent more than $25 a month for the last 15 years. We enjoy a lot of movies too.

I have no problem in the way people enjoy spending their income, we ourselves live well but spending what others spend on TV is not our thing as we can’t possibly watch everything available at $25 a month.
We enjoy making the most of our resources.

That goes for internet as well, people pay for excess speed that they never can use, same as paying for TV programming that they have so much of they can’t use all of it either.

Choice is good, free to choose, pay or not is up to the individual. It’s not a requirement to pay unless one wants to.

Do you have any stocks, mutual funds, etc., with those companies that " extract income"?

 

[SC Maintenance]

Do you have any stocks, mutual funds, etc., with those companies that " extract income"?

I own lots of stocks of companies I would never buy from. If you have a broad market 401K fund you obviously own all these companies. Not sure what your point is. There job is to extract other peoples money. Your job is to save yours. As I said, its a game. Most people lose at the savings game, which is why every company on earth wants to export their junk here and our landfills are full.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Mine haven't went up a cent of course when the raised their prices the first time I unsubscribed.

 

[Rand]

Ratcheting? More like jacking the consumer rapidly without lube.

Getting cray-cray. It doesn't seem worse than cable, it IS worse.

I don't think you've seen a cable bill lately. A relative without premium channels was $362

 

[John105]

I don't think you've seen a cable bill lately. A relative without premium channels was $362

Thanks I don’t feel as bad (I’m human). Mine is $218 and was once $140. No premium channels. Includes phone and internet. Old 100/100 Fios. All the modern alternatives (starting at basic 300/300 to 2 gig) are even more.

 

[vwmaniaman]

We currently have Friendly with the DVR option and Prime and Netflix and Brit Box and Acorn. I would dump Netflix tomorrow if wife didn't want it. I never watch anything on it.

 

[Boomer]

Don't overlook Brit Box. I believe it is right around $10/month and gives you access to hundreds of British TV shows, with coverage on some police procedural mysteries that go back decades. Really quality television.

 

[GON]

It is amazing to see the cost of streaming services in the rest of the world. Often pennies on the dollar to what Americans are very willing to pay.

The U.S. has many barriers to entry for foreign companies to provide media/ broadcast services in the U.S. If Mexican satellite TV operators were allowed to sell their services in the U.S., pricing would be different with the U.S. media "cartel" controlling the politicians and the market.

Open up free market to streaming and I am sure all of it would be under $10 USD per month, with no contracts.

 

[SC Maintenance]

It is amazing to see the cost of streaming services in the rest of the world. Often pennies on the dollar to what Americans are very willing to pay.

The U.S. has many barriers to entry for foreign companies to provide media/ broadcast services in the U.S. If Mexican satellite TV operators were allowed to sell their services in the U.S., pricing would be different with the U.S. media "cartel" controlling the politicians and the market.

Open up free market to streaming and I am sure all of it would be under $10 USD per month, with no contracts.

Your right, but its a circular argument. 70% of the economy is consumer spending. So you cut prices, then the employees of those companies make less / spend less - rinse/ repeat. There is a reason that our GDP per person is $80K and in Mexico its $12K. Were not 7X more productive. Everything here is richer, enforced with the reserve currency and at the end of a sharp spear.

What you want is others to spend hundreds on streaming, and you watch youtube for free

 

[KYMISTWALKER]

What did we do before streaming services? That is the question.

Everything was free especially commercials , now when you pay for a service you have to pay for the commercials it’s all BS

 

[IndyIan]

We are down to a basic satellite package, a single use netflix, and my parents Amazon prime, which no one seems to actually watch...
I watch F1 on vk.com with a chromebook to contain the russian spyware.
The whole digital era is a lot more expensive than the old days of free tv, free radio, the daily paper, and a single landline.... I guess i did actually buy some tapes/CD's back then, and paid for video games, and now the kids and I just play the free games on steam and play free music on youtube and soundcloud. But the monthly costs of phone plans, internet, and content is far more even for our very limited use.

 

[D60]

We simply never watched Hulu, largely because their buffering technology is seemingly non-existent and we still use cellular.

The commercials were too many and often twice the volume, so with the last price hike we dropped them.

We basically just have Netflix and Prime.

I don't know what special sauce Netflix has, but their buffering tech has always been top-notch.

Hulu is so painfully Woke, it was nice to drop them.

 

[Pablo]

We simply never watched Hulu, largely because their buffering technology is seemingly non-existent and we still use cellular.

The commercials were too many and often twice the volume, so with the last price hike we dropped them.

We basically just have Netflix and Prime.

I don't know what special sauce Netflix has, but their buffering tech has always been top-notch.

Hulu is so painfully Woke, it was nice to drop them.

Watching The Old Man on Hulu, but will drop after we are done.

 

[CKN]

I own lots of stocks of companies I would never buy from. If you have a broad market 401K fund you obviously own all these companies. Not sure what your point is. There job is to extract other peoples money. Your job is to save yours. As I said, its a game. Most people lose at the savings game, which is why every company on earth wants to export their junk here and our landfills are full.

The point is you can't have it both ways. They are "extracting money" . You
( through stocks in whatever forms) are taking it. " Extracting is a dumb term" anyway. It should be profitability, dividends, etc.

 

[Pablo]

I don't think you've seen a cable bill lately. A relative without premium channels was $362

Truth! I have not for 5+ years. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks. I think