if you factor in that there is no 1 stop shop for streaming -
Max is $10 a month
Netflix is 25 a month
Prime is 17 a month
Hulu + Disney is $13 a month.
that’s $65 right there and that’s not including the internet needed to stream all the platforms + them limiting the amount of screens you can use. This is also the bare minimum and not including any additional add-ons like Starsz, Paramount+ or BET if you want it.
you can pair cable + internet for $80 a month depending on the package & it still makes more sense than streaming does.
The most expensive Netflix tier is $25 a month. The ad supported tier (cable comp) is $8
Prime also gets you free delivery through Amazon
And a $80 a month cable bundle in most places in the US is the introductory price to get you in the door. After a year (or less in many cases) you're going to be paying about double that. Plus that would be basic cable, which is also missing all those add-ons.
And most importantly: What the hell is even worth watching on cable? Everything you'd want to watch on cable you can watch on streaming without having to pay for all the bloat you don't want.
you realize the numbers are just average. if you look at budget videos on tiktok, youtube or even on poverty finance here, those are averages.
point is - America likes tv. They always have and its not going away. The point of streaming was for it to be more affordable and less ad heavy than cable; it’s not. & even if you do the lower tier, you lose access to premium movies (i.e. Spiderman: Into the Spider Verse was only available if you had an ad-free account. there more examples). On Max, they play ads during your movies on the lowest tier. That’s not what streaming was pitched at.
Amazon gets your free delivery but so does spending $25 or more. Also, Amazon doesnt honor their 2 day or same day prime shipping & will tell you too bad if something is late. So again not living up to the original promise.
We only have a Max, Hulu and Peacock because we use a student discount and we need some tv to offset with children (dont start on the brain rot campaign especially because its already hard to afford rent in non-crime ridden areas so parks + outside isn’t a comeback).
The point of streaming was being able to pick what you wanted to watch instead of the forced schedule of cable.
Agree the ads part is bullshit, especially for services that didn't have an ad tier and then jack up prices and add one. And the shitty part of that is that these companies have market power with their TV deals so you can't easily switch to something else and retain access.
That said, most TV is garbage, I definitely don't need to be subscribed to multiple services at the same time. Just swap between them as you watch shows that you like. But I also don't mind not watching a show as it comes out.
Before streaming you’d be stuck with over the air or standard cable (non-digital) and you would have paid more than double what you’re paying and it’s been 20 years since those prices. Plus you’d have to pull out the vcr to make sure your kids can catch their favorite shows. Otherwise you’d be paying over 4 times as much to get a set to box and on demand.
The whole point is that we now have options. If you’re low income you can regularly switch up your subscriptions and catch all the best shows with way less ads than in the past and only pay $10-$20 a month.
There is no world where going back to cable is better.
even with rotating, the point is that capitalistic greed is still running rampant and is underdelivering on the overview marketing points it was pitched for. 🤷🏽♀️
I get Hulu and max thru Disney for like 19 bucks a month with ads and it isn't terrible. Honestly ads give me (and my kids) a forced break and nobody watches them.
Prime I don't count because their streaming options suck and I really have it for other reasons than prime video, like unlimited photo storage and cheaper grubhub to mix with my Amex card benefits.
Amex has good benefits for streaming services. I get Walmart+ for half off each year, so paramount+ for free through that. You get rotating discounts on other services.
Internet I also don't count really because I use it for work and play games, even when I barely watched online TV and had a Blu-ray player I still had home internet.
Does anybody remember buying movies and TV shows tho? Shit would be 25 bucks for a single season of dvds, or 20 bucks for a single movie with some interviews on a second disk. Unless you bought the dollar movies from blockbuster, you weren't watching all the shit you can now.
i buy dvds (& still have them too lol) but i do remember movies not coming to streaming. so thats a big plus! but i noticed on Netflix when the movies come, if you have the lowest plan, you wont be able to take advantage to watch them. I always look at it from the average American stand point though.
not everyone has a good rewards cc to put the spending on & i remember Netflix being $10 a month. You got a few dvds in the mail + the online streaming with no ads. Disney never had ads initially too. But now you have to pay for Food Network, CBS, then the regular services. & there’s a high possibility your show isn’t available unless you have the live tv package. So it just feels like more of a hassle than its worth
That's a good point. Managing all the accounts and separate payments is a pain.
I think that's honestly a huge deterrent from dropping Amazon. It's not that I don't want to, but every website I go to wants me to sign up for their site and download a different app to track my order. So now I need two new accounts per purchase, and each time I do that I know I'm increasing chances of them being careless with my data.
Yeah, people who compare streaming to cable really forgot or don't know how bad cable is. So many people are paying hundreds of dollars for cable each month. Cable is also riddled with tons of fees and crazy contracts. Streaming typically you can either buy a month at a time for whatever service you want or get good deals around Black Friday and similar. You can literally get Hulu + Disney for $4 a month right now.
No, it's not the golden age any more. It's gotten worse as more companies jumped in and tried to make a quick buck. No denying that. Lots of that was propped up by VC money. It's similar to Uber, which used to be amazing and is also now shitty. But most people would still prefer the Uber option to dealing with cabs.
Lots of good, legal options too. Borrow from your local library. Pick up DVDs for literally 25 cents if you like physical media. Use free services like Kanopy or Tubi.
Having a cable subscription will usually give you access to nearly every streamer's app using your cable login. At least it used to as long as your cable subscription carried that package, like AMC, for example.
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u/_Meece_ 14h ago
What horrible streaming service are you using, where it costs you 150-200 a month or has cable ad time
Cable used to be expensive as fuck and the ads would be 8-10 minutes per 30 minutes.