One thing I want to debate about this is I remember how expensive cable used to be. It was like 120 bucks. Maybe you got like a $70 package or $80 package where you had barely any channels. I ain’t spending that much on streaming services!! I don’t know if I’m an outlier but I got Three and that’s about it. I pay around 40 bucks a month.
Cable didn’t start out that fucked. People switched from cable because they were tired of it getting more and more packages and more and more pricey. We are seeing the exact same thing with streaming.
But the direction is certainly heading towards the realm of cable prices…
Netflix: $15.49
Amazon Prime Video: $14.99
Apple TV+: $6.99
HBO Max: $15.99
Disney+: $10.99
Hulu: $14.99
Total: $79.44 per month
So maybe when you account for inflation it is still only half of what cable costs,.perhaps. but those are the cheaper plans. For HDR support for Netflix it’s like $25, and it’s the reason I cancelled Netflix.
I don’t think the meme is dumb, just ahead of it’s time, but it’s calling out what is certainly happening.
Most streaming services now include ads in the paid subscription.
Inch the ad ratio and prices up another 40% and we are getting pretty close to cable experience/cost. And that’s only a few years away when we look at how much costs have raised over the last 10 yrs.
If each service raises price $1/month every year and you have 6 services, then in 5 yrs you’re paying $30 more per month, prob around $100+.
And the six you listed are the big ones, but there’s plenty of others that have exclusive content. There’s also Criterion if you like classics/arthouse, Crunchyroll if you like anime. Paramount, AMC, Showtime, Peacock, etc etc, etc.
Exactly. I was trying to be conservative by choosing only 6 and sticking to the cheaper plans.
But it is entirely conceivable today that, if someone has literally all the subscriptions, they could be paying more than cable costs.
Another factor I ignored for brevity is, at least when I was a kid, the price of cable was often bundled with Internet and telephone services. I can’t speak to how accurate the numbers would be, but I’m pretty sure my dad was paying $100+ for cable and everything else, meaning the cable likely wasn’t the entire cost of the bill. But I digress…
Streaming has gotten out of hand, and anyone who disagrees with me today will eventually agree within a decade.
Or watched cable ADs apparently, cable TV ads were like…5 minutes or maybe even longer. Just commercial after commercial, so long that it was viable to use them to go-to the bathroom when you didn’t have DVR lmao
You know how some shows are 23 minutes long and some are 42? The reason for those odd times is because the shows had half an hour or an hour timeslots and the rest of it would be ads, so in an hour show you would get nearly 20 minutes of ads
What’s worse is with long running shows like mythbusters you can see the shows runtime slowly being chipped away in favor of more ads, the 2003 season’s episodes had runtimes of 50 minutes, by 2016 it was down to 42
It sucks that Netflix doesn’t have as much as they used to because stuff has been pulled for other services but the value proposition for streaming still blows cable out of the water, even with price increases. Adding free or low cost commercial tiers for more price sensitive people doesn’t give me commercials.
With all the premium channels and three HD-DVR boxes I used to pay over $200, before internet, more than a decade ago with much of that going to a shitty middle man company. And that’s for commercial, appointment TV. Even with the premium stations you had to DVR shit to watch later. I subscribe to a ton of services, even some fringe ones, so I almost never come across something that I can’t watch immediately with no commercials on any device I have access to anywhere in the world. And with annual rates, discounts from my phone company, and kickbacks from credit cards I’m still under $100. And now the money goes to companies that actually produce content, even if some of them suck for other reasons.
With what I’m getting I would pay double what I used to for cable, but as it is I’m paying half. It seems like a lot of people complaining never paid for cable with all the packages/premium stations themselves and don’t remember how much appointment TV sucked.
Adding free or low cost commercial tiers for more price sensitive people doesn’t give me commercials.
The thing is they didn’t add a new, cheaper or free “ad supported” option. They added ads to the current price, and then told us to pay more if we wanted to keep the same experience. This is one of the 7 dread turd pillars of enshittifi ation.
One thing I want to debate about this is I remember how expensive cable used to be. It was like 120 bucks. Maybe you got like a $70 package or $80 package where you had barely any channels. I ain’t spending that much on streaming services!! I don’t know if I’m an outlier but I got Three and that’s about it. I pay around 40 bucks a month.
Cable didn’t start out that fucked. People switched from cable because they were tired of it getting more and more packages and more and more pricey. We are seeing the exact same thing with streaming.
Yea these memes are dumb and I feel made by children who never paid for cable.
But the direction is certainly heading towards the realm of cable prices…
Total: $79.44 per month
So maybe when you account for inflation it is still only half of what cable costs,.perhaps. but those are the cheaper plans. For HDR support for Netflix it’s like $25, and it’s the reason I cancelled Netflix.
I don’t think the meme is dumb, just ahead of it’s time, but it’s calling out what is certainly happening.
Most streaming services now include ads in the paid subscription.
Inch the ad ratio and prices up another 40% and we are getting pretty close to cable experience/cost. And that’s only a few years away when we look at how much costs have raised over the last 10 yrs.
If each service raises price $1/month every year and you have 6 services, then in 5 yrs you’re paying $30 more per month, prob around $100+.
And the six you listed are the big ones, but there’s plenty of others that have exclusive content. There’s also Criterion if you like classics/arthouse, Crunchyroll if you like anime. Paramount, AMC, Showtime, Peacock, etc etc, etc.
Exactly. I was trying to be conservative by choosing only 6 and sticking to the cheaper plans.
But it is entirely conceivable today that, if someone has literally all the subscriptions, they could be paying more than cable costs.
Another factor I ignored for brevity is, at least when I was a kid, the price of cable was often bundled with Internet and telephone services. I can’t speak to how accurate the numbers would be, but I’m pretty sure my dad was paying $100+ for cable and everything else, meaning the cable likely wasn’t the entire cost of the bill. But I digress…
Streaming has gotten out of hand, and anyone who disagrees with me today will eventually agree within a decade.
Prime is like 5/month here.
It used to be 3 though. Is it triple as expensive where you live? (Us?)
I have never seen Prime sell for $5 a month, not even in the beginning.
Or watched cable ADs apparently, cable TV ads were like…5 minutes or maybe even longer. Just commercial after commercial, so long that it was viable to use them to go-to the bathroom when you didn’t have DVR lmao
You know how some shows are 23 minutes long and some are 42? The reason for those odd times is because the shows had half an hour or an hour timeslots and the rest of it would be ads, so in an hour show you would get nearly 20 minutes of ads
What’s worse is with long running shows like mythbusters you can see the shows runtime slowly being chipped away in favor of more ads, the 2003 season’s episodes had runtimes of 50 minutes, by 2016 it was down to 42
that’s still more than pirating it, even if you pay for a vpn
It’s also a lot more than a metal coat hanger shoved in the top of your crt
It sucks that Netflix doesn’t have as much as they used to because stuff has been pulled for other services but the value proposition for streaming still blows cable out of the water, even with price increases. Adding free or low cost commercial tiers for more price sensitive people doesn’t give me commercials.
With all the premium channels and three HD-DVR boxes I used to pay over $200, before internet, more than a decade ago with much of that going to a shitty middle man company. And that’s for commercial, appointment TV. Even with the premium stations you had to DVR shit to watch later. I subscribe to a ton of services, even some fringe ones, so I almost never come across something that I can’t watch immediately with no commercials on any device I have access to anywhere in the world. And with annual rates, discounts from my phone company, and kickbacks from credit cards I’m still under $100. And now the money goes to companies that actually produce content, even if some of them suck for other reasons.
With what I’m getting I would pay double what I used to for cable, but as it is I’m paying half. It seems like a lot of people complaining never paid for cable with all the packages/premium stations themselves and don’t remember how much appointment TV sucked.
The thing is they didn’t add a new, cheaper or free “ad supported” option. They added ads to the current price, and then told us to pay more if we wanted to keep the same experience. This is one of the 7 dread turd pillars of enshittifi ation.