Monthly subscription streaming services are no longer better than cable, they’re worse, and they’re much more costly.
The original reason for cord cutting, which means canceling cable TV subscriptions in favor of streaming services, was to nix the lump sum cable TV costs in favor of cheaper options like Netflix and Hulu.
The Xfinity Digital Preferred package, has a middle package that offers 220 channels, currently costs $59.99 a month in the San Jose area. It’s still quite a price to pay, but media companies continue to release their own content streaming platforms which add up quickly.
A standard Netflix subscription will run users $12.99 a month while Hulu’s ad-free option costs $11.99 a month. An Amazon Prime Video membership is $8.99 a month and HBO Now is $14.99 monthly.
These four services together cost nearly $50 a month and are the most subscribed to according to a 2018 Parks Associates study.
Want to be able to watch live sports and shows as they air? If so, you better pick up another part time job, because services like YouTube TV cost a hefty $49.99 per month.
The list of streaming services is constantly growing, and it’s adding two industry titans to the mix next month.
Both launching in November, Apple TV+ will cost $4.99 a month and Disney Plus will run users $6.99 every month.
In its inception, Netflix cost $7.99 per month. While Apple TV+ and Disney Plus seem cheap, they will assuredly raise their prices once they have their corporate hooks firmly affixed to a wide enough subscriber base.
If someone was hypothetically subscribed to every one of the aforementioned services, they would be shelling out $110.93 a month for the ability to watch way more content than anyone could actually handle.
While I’m not necessarily advocating for a return to cable for people that cut the cord, your money is now flying into the pockets of a plethora of streaming service companies instead of one cable TV entity, and keeping track of it all can get hectic.
Content is still king, but that content is slowly being stripped away from platforms like Netflix and are being reclaimed by their original owners for their own streaming platforms.
“The Office,” which originally aired on NBC, will be leaving Netflix after Dec. 31 2020 and will only be available to stream on NBC’s yet-to-be-released streaming service named Peacock.
“Friends” is in a similar boat and will no longer be able to be streamed through Netflix after this year.
WarnerMedia acquired the rights to the show and will have it available to stream on the new HBO Max streaming service, launching in 2020.
Once Disney Plus launches Nov. 12, all Disney-produced or owned content on Netflix or other streaming platforms will begin to vanish and only be available through Disney Plus.
Today, it costs you a $12.99 Netflix subscription to watch an episode of “The Office” and “Friends,” followed up with a viewing of the Disney-owned Marvel property “Black Panther.”
In 2021, the ability to watch that same lineup could cost double or triple that amount depending on the price points of Peacock and HBO Max, and be available on three separate platforms as opposed to all being on one.
It’s almost as if all of these streaming service companies banded together and decided to make the user experience of simply watching TV as tiresome as possible.
Streaming is heading to a point where every media network that creates its own content is going to have its own streaming service.
They’re all going to hook you in with a low introductory rate or a free trial, and eventually raise them to match competitors prices.
The bubble is going to burst because people are not going to be able to afford being subscribed to a growing myriad of services.
Cable companies were creeping toward extinction, but the constant expansion of streaming platforms may be resurrecting an industry we thought was long gone.
