After years of inflation, Americans are used to sticker shock. But nothing compares to the surging price of streaming video.
Last week, Apple TV+ became the latest streaming service to raise its price—up from $6.99 to $9.99 per month—following the example of Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Netflix, which all hiked their prices in October.
Half of the major streaming platforms in the U.S. now charge a monthly fee that’s double the price they charged when they initially came to market. And many of these streaming services haven’t even been around for 10 years.
Yup, no reason at all to stop raising prices. Not a one.
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My household has drastically cut back on what we subscribe to. It’s honestly overwhelming figuring out where to go to watch something, much less justifying paying for multiple services.
You can stream pretty much anything for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/
Just make sure you have uBlock Origin installed.
If you ever get lost, just search ‘free streaming sites reddit’ and go from there.
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Why is the VPN singing sea shanties?
Pushing ads pushes profits
Some observers see another reason for the frequent price hikes: to push subscribers to their breaking point, and compel them to opt for a lower-priced, or even free, ad-supported plan instead.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said as much during an August earnings call: “We’re obviously trying, with our pricing strategy, to migrate more subs to the advertiser-supported tier.”
Why? Unlike a paid subscription, which brings in a fixed amount of revenue each month, there is no ceiling to advertising revenue. The number of ads displayed and the rates a streaming platform can charge marketers for the ads are constantly fluctuating, offering unlimited revenue upside.
Son of a bitch
Yo ho ho.
I’ve been making fun of them for years and they just keep doubling down on their stupidity.
I’ve lost hope for this generation.
You can stream pretty much anything for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/
Just make sure you have uBlock Origin installed.
Use your brains, not your wallets. (unless you’re a useful idiot)
Ok, question. I’m totally tech illiterate, but have heard these kinds sites are used to farm for crypto? Like I’d rather just not watch new shows or movies at this point until I can take the time to learn to pirate again safely.
Adblockers should block those scripts too.
Even if it didn’t, don’t worry about it. All it does is run a script on the webpage. It used a little of your CPU time, but otherwise doesn’t affect your PC.
these kinds sites
Well, when you’re that ambiguous, sure you can find streaming sites that mine crypto.
Does that mean this one does? Well, I’d wait until there is evidence before clutching my pearls.
… I’m asking if there is evidence of it, and if so, what that means in terms of effecting PC performance. Or just in general for these kinds of sites if it’s a concern worth having.
I have not seen any evidence that the site I linked mines crypto on user’s machines.
dvd and bluray are so goshdarn cheap that my wife and I thought to just buy everything we like watching physically. yeah we still have to rent new things every so often, but we generally just watch completed series or older movies.
we did an activity called ‘the vault’ where we identified ~800 movies/series that we could just live with forever. Now that the list was made its been the fun casual game of hunting for the best deal.
for instance, we like horror and we found all Blu-rays of the nightmare on elm street for like $15, all Halloween movies for ~$30, original star trek complete series $25.
I am predicting that our 800 works will cost somewhere around $2000? i winced at seeing that price, but spreading it over a few years of searching (we like trying to find our copies at local used stores) i think it isn’t too bad! plus its another activity for me and my wife to do.
Simply realizing that “wow we should just buy the stuff we watch on repeat” has been good for the monthly expenses. yeah we miss out on some exclusive stuff, but honestly there is just so much good shit out there from the past. i can certainly wait for that exclusive stuff to go on sale or finish up its finale so i can resub for a month to binge it.
certainly not laying out all the pros and cons of doing it, but i think the adventure of rediscovering physical media again has been showing is more pros than cons.
I’m all for owning media and having hard copies but not sure I am following on the financial side. $2000 for your “vault” is around 16 years worth of paying for streaming services. That’s not including your self reported extra renting. Do you think the 16 year ROI is worth it? Is the higher quality media a factor?
Just curious how it would be good for your “monthly expenses” given how much you are intending to spend.
16 years of a single ad-ridden service, maybe. Most people probably have more than just their lone Disney+ bundle or Netflix, so I’d say it’s probably closer to 5 years, also assuming they don’t continue to raise prices, which obviously won’t happen.
Weird how you think you’re taking the intelligent play when you’re actually getting taken for a ride.
The smart thing to do would be to subscribe to a VPN for <$4/month then download everything you want.
Oh i am very aware that you are 100% correct in both areas of efficiency and value!
However, I just really like the activity of searching for them at garage sales, flea markets, estate sales, used media stores, etc. if it takes me a while, so be it. ill just rewatch what i already have.
Yea, and that’s kind of in the realm of being a collector. If that’s what you enjoy you have extra incentive to do so, so the cost has less weight. Cool concept nonetheless.
They didn’t include Jolly Roger.
Of the price increases, the Apple one is the only one that doesn’t really offend me. It was dirt cheap after it launched because it didn’t have a big library of original content. No one was going to pay more than $5 for that service.
Now they have somewhat of a modest library, and now it’s $7.
Edit: got my numbers wrong. Going from $7 to $10
This article says they’re raising it to $10, no? I think this is the article I read earlier. But Central Park is fantastic and the only thing I know about Apple TV.
Yeah, my bad. It’s going from $7 to $10. You’re right.
I’m about to give them some reasons.
The good news is more and more pirate streaming sites are up like 123series.art and movie-web.app.
