I suspect many of you would be subscribing to multiple video streaming services. I currently subscribe to four services.
Currently, one of my pet peeves is when I come across a movie or TV series that sounds like it could be worth a view and then click on it only to discover that it is only available via a completely different service. This is now becoming so prevalent that, at times, when perusing new content, there is more new content being listed for alternative streaming services than on the service I am actually perusing. As the late and great Professor Julius Sumner Miller would say… “Why is it so?”
I mentioned some time ago that the content is fractured, with different seasons of the same TV series available across various streaming services. In some cases, viewing all seasons of a particular TV show can involve subscribing to multiple services.
This all seems to me to be the exact opposite of competition and more along the lines of streaming services colluding to entice more and more consumers into subscribing to more and more services.
Just recently, I received an email from BritBox informing me that the subscription was being increased from $9.95au to $13.95au. $4.00au per month might not sound like much, but it represents a 40% increase… bye bye BritBox.
Within a short space of time, I received another notification, this time from AppleTV, informing me that it was increasing its monthly subscription by… wait for it… $4.00au per month. I do not believe in coincidence.
Now, I appreciate that expenses for these streaming services are subject to increase, but I can’t help wondering if we are maybe paying for expenses incurred in the process of them promoting one another.
BOTTOM LINE:
At the moment, these streaming services all seem to be behaving exactly as they please. However, there are so many vying for licensing rights and our patronage now that maybe it’s time for the entire industry to be regulated somehow.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
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I subscribe to no streaming services. Those monthly fees, here there and everywhere, add up to far more than I want to pay. I just keep paying Xfinity for nothing much except the news and, during the fall and winter, five shows a week.
This is a state of affairs I don’t expect to change. I’m thinking of purchasing DVDs of some of the older shows I never watched. That seems expensive at first glance, but when I’m through with them I can pass them on to family members. Also, I get a lot of reading done.
Streaming when it first started out was an excellent alternative to the high prices of cable and satellite but now has become just as or more expensive than both. And it seems that anything new worth watching is always being released on another channel that you have to pay for.
I have taken to knocking my streaming services down to a select few , even if I have to wait for a period of time to watch any new releases , in time all these movies make their rounds to different channels when their profitability starts dropping.
Well Jim, I subscribe to 2 services. Prime video is included with my Amazon account and Tubi is Free. After winning Audials, I can add videos to my library to view later, Mindblower!