When Netflix first introduced its streaming video service in 2007, it seemed like a miracle. Netflix DVD customers in the US, paying between $5.99 and $17.99 a month, had instant access to 1,000 movies through a web browser. No more waiting to receive DVDs in the mail, or ads like on TV – just press a button and watch. Instantly! Now it seems like that was a long time ago. Netflix’s most premium 4K streaming plan now costs $23 per month, while its standard ad-free subscription costs $15.49 per month. (There’s a standard plan with ads for $6.99 a month, but it doesn’t support offline downloads and doesn’t include some content.)
Netflix has also been cracking down on account sharing recently, which is great for its overall profits and subscriber numbers, but bad for anyone trying to save money. You’ll have to pay an additional $7.99 per month to add more member spaces to the standard and premium plans.
And it’s not just Netflix. Over the past year, almost all of the major streaming services have raised their prices considerably. Apple TV+ is doubling its original price to $10 a month ($99 a year). Disney+ also saw a sharp increase to $14 per month for its ad-free premium tier. For those who subscribe to multiple services, it’s easy to think we’re back in the good old days of cable TV, where we ended up spending tons of money on hundreds of channels.
But let’s not get dramatic. Subscribing to the streaming services you use most is still much cheaper than opting for a typical cable plan. In my area, Comcast’s most popular plan with more than 125 channels costs $60 a month, but the company hides the additional $27.80 broadcast network fee and $13.40 regional sports license fee. My current The monthly cost starts at $101.20, and that doesn’t include taxes, equipment rental fees (at least $10 per month), and other add-ons that Comcast may be able to convince you to. (Want 300 hours of Cloud DVR? That’s another $20 a month!)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average urban consumer spends a whopping $575 a month on cable, satellite, or streaming television services. To be clear, those numbers reflect that some customers spend much more on sports and other packages compared to others. But still, even the prospect of spending $370 a month on cable (the 2010 BLS consumption average) seems unfathomable. Suddenly, Netflix slowly approaching $25 doesn’t seem so bad, especially since cable customers also You have to subscribe to streaming services to watch their original shows.
While some have argued that streaming price increases indicate the end of the dream of cutting the cord, that is far from true. Cable prices were already high a decade ago and have increased considerably since then. (Transmission fees alone were It is estimated to increase by 8 to 10 percent between 2016 and 2019..) If anything, the arguments in favor of cutting the umbilical cord are even stronger now. With the wealth of content available on streaming services, do you really need to pay hundreds to watch another HGTV marathon? Especially when you can find HGTV content on Max and similar shows on other streamers?
Nobody likes their favorite services to become more expensive. One could easily argue that streaming price increases fall firmly withinai/#hey-guys”> Corey Doctorow’s Internet Enshittification Concept, where companies offer cheap and useful services to grow their user base, but inevitably make the experience worse to make more money and appease their investors. Unless an online service is run as a non-profit or completely free side project, enshitification seems inevitable.
But it’s worth acknowledging why streaming services were so cheap to begin with. The Netflix streaming service was practically an experiment from the beginning: it was included in existing subscription plans and you could only watch up to 18 hours a month. When Netflix launched its standalone streaming subscription in 2010, it cost just $7.99 a month, a price that remained until its basic plan increased by a dollar in 2019. While the company introduced more expensive standard and premium plans along the way , the entry plan always seemed like a great deal to me. Who wouldn’t want instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows for the price of two coffees?
Like many startups during the 2010s, Netflix continually raised tons of money (around $5 billion).stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/gross-profit#:~:text=Netflix%20gross%20profit%20for%20the%20twelve%20months%20ending%20September%2030,a%2027.22%25%20increase%20from%202020.”> without making huge profits — or at least, not obtain benefits commensurate with the tens of billions the company has spent on original content during the last decade. Attract new subscribers and Keeping them was much more important to Netflix than being a sustainable business. So it wasn’t too surprising that other services like HBO Max, Disney+, and Apple TV+ launched with low prices competitive with Netflix.
According to Janko Roettgers, author of the low pass bulletinand former media and technology reporter at Variety, Netflix had an advantage over the competition because its former DVD business could fund its streaming ambitions. Other companies like Disney and Warner Bros. had to decide how streaming fit into their existing television channels and movie studios.
“Now (Netflix) is making money from streaming around the world and is starting to get into gaming,” Roettgers noted on the Engadget Podcast this week. “So they’re pretty quick to follow through. And if you look at some of these legacy media companies, well, they still have linear networks. And they’re slowly and slowly declining, and it’s taking them a long time to figure it out (…) “Should we get out of this? How many of them can we still operate? How many of them do we need to close?”
When Netflix announced that it was actually losing subscribers in 2022 (200,000 in the first quarter, followed by a whopping one million users in the second quarter), it was like a nuclear bomb went off in the streaming industry. It immediately led to belt-tightening across services: widespread layoffs, canceled shows, and more money-making schemes. Netflix’s ad-supported tier launched later that year, while sharing account blocking began in earnest in May.
With interest rates rising and investors worried about the economy, raising prices was the inevitable next step for any streaming provider. And unfortunately, that trend won’t be reversing anytime soon. At best, we can only hope that the threat of losing users and competitive pressure keep Netflix and others from reaching cable’s feared highs.
But don’t forget, there’s one thing you can do with streaming services that’s much harder with cable companies: you can easily cancel and subscribe online. You don’t need to set aside time and emotional energy to deal with a customer service representative over the phone, or set aside a morning for a technician to visit you. That potential for churn looms over all streaming providers. So if their prices go too high or they don’t offer enough valuable content to watch, just walk away.
Still, it’s worth remembering that access to media is cheaper than ever. You don’t have to worry about spending a lot of money to rent movies from Blockbuster or your local video store. No need to worry about late payment fees. And while I miss the heyday of DVDs, buying just one of those discs could cover a month of service on two streaming services these days (sometimes three!).
So sure, it sucks that Netflix is getting more expensive. But, personally, I would easily take these prices higher compared to life before the streaming era.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/is-streaming-video-even-still-worth-it-192651141.html?src=rss
