Unless you are rich — and maybe still some of the wealthy, too — must have some sort of monthly budget for expenses.
In these troubled times, but hopefully soon improving as vaccines travel the world, we must look at whatever money we’re making and budget accordingly. Streaming channels are part of the overall entertainment budget and the cost of them is and will continue to rise.
Netflix has been not so quietly increasing its monthly subscription prices over the past few years (see: ) and in Disney’s recent earnings call, they announced plans to increase Disney+ pricing by a $1/month in March ($7.99/month instead of $6.99).
Disney plans on spending between $14 billion and $16 billion across its streaming ventures to make all those shows and movies. Someone has to pay for all that content — and that someone is probably you, the customer. If Disney wants to achieve its forecast of hitting profitability in fiscal 2024, it has to raise prices.
Streaming is about to get a lot more expensive – CNN
From time to time we analyze what we’re spending on entertainment. If you figure we can’t have our $44/month for the unlimited theater budget at the moment (see: ), that leaves an additional $44 for streaming channels.
Here’s what we’re spending and where (from most expensive to least):
- Netflix ($17/month + tax) $18.70
- HBO Max ($72 + tax, bi-annual) $13.20
- Amazon Prime ($120 + tax, annual) $11
- Disney+ ($80 + tax, annual) $7.33
- Hulu ($5.99/month + tax) $6.60
- CBS All Access ($5.99/month + tax) $6.60
- Peacock premium (Free, included with XFinity High Speed Internet)
= $63.43/month
All things considered, we feel like that $63.43 is reasonable. Do we want to see it rise to over $100/month? No, but something tells me in 5-10 years, perhaps sooner, the costs will continue to rise under the guise of, “hey, look how much content we have!”
Unless more of the channels we watch opt for advertising to pay the difference. CBS All Access and Hulu both have ads. HBO Max is going to add ads, but hopefully not to the subscription we’re on. The rest of the streaming channels we subscribe to don’t have ads at this time, including the most expensive: Netflix.
How much are you spending monthly on streaming? How much are you willing to spend going forward?
Movies, Movies, Movies 
And the irony is the channel which provides the most exciting movies is…YouTube..
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Do you really watch movies on YouTube, or just kidding? I watch YouTube videos from various people, podcasts … I didn’t even watch Cobra Kai when it started on YouTube. I know there are some older movies on YouTube and sometimes movies are posted there without copyright permission and some that of course are legit as VOD. Just not what I think of YouTube for as a streaming movie and TV channel, but more of videos from everybody type of thing.
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Right, but so many good movies are currently unlicenced by streaming services, and that will change. Until then, YouTube is like the Wild West, no rules, no laws, 1080p copies of great films for free. reviewing John Huston’s The Kremlin Letter this week, watched it on YouTube, more chance of finding a great old film there than on Prime or Netflix…and building up traction or interest in an old movie should help it get back into licencing, so it’s a win-win…
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Reminds me a bit of Napster when they first started. Music that wasn’t available to buy readily available, at least until the copyright owners DMCA it.
It’s too bad that The Internet Archive didn’t become more of a place for the unavailable content legally. Thy have some movies there, but it’s primarily public domain. Someday presumably most the movies we are talking about will be in the public domain.
You’re making a very valid point.
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I see these odd little video channels on YouTube as being like off-Broadway; one route back to the big time…
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In fairness I might be missing some amateur filmmakers showing their early work on YouTube, I could see this as a possibility, but have not really explored the service for that type of content. Am sure it’s there … somewhere.
Add to this Tik Tok and every other video service on the web that’s not a mainstream or niche streaming channel (there are even many of those I haven’t checked out).
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And quite a few DVD extras surface on youtube. And for watching films direct from film-makers, VIMEO is where it’s at if you’re happy to pay on a film by film basis…
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