There are now at least eight streaming services, each of which has some exclusive content that is pretty good and a bunch of trash!
The contestants are :
CBS All Access - $6 a month (Star Trek)
Disney (unreleased) - $7 a month (all the new live action Marvel shows and live action Star Wars shows)
Amazon Prime - $9 a month but most people will have the full prime service (Grand Tour AND The Boys)
Hulu (ad free) - $12 a month (Marvel’s Runaways and South Park)
HBO Go - $15 a month (Game of Thrones and that Vampire show and that other great show and …)
Netflix mid-tier - $13 a month (Stranger Things)
Youtube Red - $10 a month (that Karate Kid sequel)
ESPN+ - $6 a month (sports news?)
Total : $80 a month. Plus, the internet access to enjoy this will be at least $50 a month. (Comcast, it’s possible to eternally be on the “first year” rate)
Surprisingly $130 a month is a great deal! Consumer Reports investigated and found the real average cable bill in the USA is $217 a month.
There’s just a few small problems…
Getting nickel and dimed for 8 services that you probably don’t all use in one month feels like a ripoff. And 8 services means 8 different apps on your Roku, 8 sets of passwords, 8 billing accounts, 8 different UIs…it’s just a big huge hassle.
I personally have just 3 of the above services and I don’t even log in to some of them on a given month.
**YouTube TV ** will soon add PBS stations to their lineup, at which point it will have all of the channels Mrs. C and I ever watch. For $50 month, not counting internet access which we already have regardless.
I was going to start a thread about this a few months ago but figured I was in the minority. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Not only does it feel like a ripoff, I wonder how sustainable it is? As a consumer I refuse to pay for all those streaming services because a), it’s a pain in the ass to pay a monthly bill (no matter how small it is) for something that I may not use every month, and b) streaming services tend to drop programs that I may want to revisit.
For example, years ago King of the Hill was released on DVD. I created a thread about it here and someone basically said “yer an idiot because it’s available on Amazon and iTunes.” Well, it’s certainly not available on Amazon anymore. But I bought the DVD’s, so when I want to watch them I dont have to worry about if the streaming service I subscribe to still has them.
As a consumer I refuse to play that game. I’m not a big TV watcher so it doesnt affect me much. I suppose if I was the Homer Simpson type I might be more pissed than I am. Of course, I may have and subscribe to the new Disney service, which will bring my streaming subscription to 3: Amazon, Netflix, and Disney. If it wasn’t for The Simpsons I would have no interest in Disney+. Even with them I’m not sold on it… see the DVD comment above.
$217 a month is average for cable bills in the U.S.?! So half those people pay more… amazing. That’s an (admittedly inexpensive) car payment. For TV. I think not.
its going to get worse for a few years as any studio with more than 5 tv shows or movies will start their own streaming service then they’ll buy each other out or let the bigger ones have the rights to their shows like Disney and nat geo
our cable bill runs about 280 a month but we have the “best” internet along with our phone too on it oi thats about 100 but we have every channel spectrum has for la county
Is this the thread? If so, you misinterpreted my post. I thought it was weird that they went straight to full season streaming/downloads without trying to cash in on DVD sales first, I wasn’t taking a shot at you.
My dad, who I lived with to take care of, died a couple of weeks ago and one of the things I’ve accomplished since then is changing cable/internet plans.
In the final 18 or so months of his life he was more or less home bound, but could still enjoy TV so I’m glad he was able to make himself happy with all the bells and whistles. He had the highest speed internet - which once they did a long over due upgrade to the cable lines in August to give our neighborhood the speeds we were paying for proved to be massive overkill - and sports channels and an elaborate HD package and a DVR to record said sports…On the other hand I rarely watch anything live or on demand and only recorded one show. I’m only interested in having the most basic cable package so the streaming channels that make you prove you have cable still work.
So, instead of paying $232/mo for cable & internet I’ll be paying $112. I’m kind of bummed that the Food network seems like it won’t let me see the Haunted Gingerbread Showdown, but I bet I’ll be able to buy it on Amazon or Googleplay for a heck of a lot less than paying another $1440 to the cable company over the next year.
All that nickel and diming of those streaming services can get infuriating. Right now I have Netflix, it seems to be out go to service and does what we need. Amazon Prime, mostly for delivery reasons, I don’t think we would pay for that if it was not included, but it might be fun to drop Netflix and just try to live with Amazon Prime as the main service. Hulu which is still currently $1/month, I don’t think we would pony up for the regular price when this deal expires in November.
Beyond that we have dabbled with Philo and ATT streaming service, which it is nice to have a broadcast lineup similar to cable but even at the cheapest level it’s expensive for what it is. The only other thing is CBS All access, which to me is the ‘We have the only place for this show you want to see, so bend over and take it’ channel. It’s really for one show, and that really is the annoying part, when there is one network that wants to charge just for their network alone as much as a streaming service that offers so much more.
Who says you have to pay for all 8 at once? One of the great benefits of the streaming wars is that you aren’t tied into contracts and can cancel and resign for streaming services when you want.
For example, I cancelled HBO Now after Game of Thrones and I’ll pick it back up this month for The Watchman. That was multiple months I didn’t pay for it.
I know people who signed up for CBS All Access only for Star Trek Discovery and cancelled after they watched all the season’s episodes.
My wife pretty much only watches local network channels, CNN, MSNBC, Food network, etc and leaves the TV on 24/7. Is there a streaming service that covers all the “regular” live tv programming, and would also take into account the loss of “discount” from having TV and internet from the same company? If so, maybe I’d upgrade my internet and drop the TV, but it would be 100% useless if I can’t have normal programming running on my living room tv.
Absolutely you can do this. And what the streaming providers are banking on is you forgetting.
Also it’s a mega hassle.
I wonder : maybe you could pay for each service with a time limited virtual credit card. This way you only pay for as many months as you intend, ahead of time.
I just don’t get the hassle argument. Get a service to watch a few things and then when you get bored of it, cancel. And then look for another service to watch.
Maybe keep a few constantly going services (that’s Netflix and Amazon for me - but Amazon is for the shipping and the video is added benefit) and then cycle through the rest one at a time.
I still have a cable subscription with a couple of premium channels and no streaming subscriptions at all. The eight services listed in the OP are only some of the options; there are lots more, for various genres and interests. And the OP mentioned HBO Go, but their new one is HBO Max, which will also have Sesame Street, The Big Bang Theory, Friends, HBO series, and series from TBS and other Time-Warner networks. I don’t know if HBO Go will still be offered, or if it’s being replaced by HBO Max, and I’m interested to find out whether my HBO cable subscription gives me any access to HBO Max and whether the fact that I pay Comcast (which owns NBC Universal) for cable service will give me any access to Peacock, the new streaming service from NBC.
It might be a mega-hassle if you are constantly signing up and canceling each service. But there’s only one show I watch on CBS all access , so every year, I sign up for a month , watch the whole season and cancel till next year. As far as Amazon and Netflix, I actually got the Prime account for shipping so video is a bonus, and I watch Netflix every week so I don;t cancel those and HBO Go and Showtime Anytime come with my cable subscription*, so no need to cancel those.
I still have cable and will have it until there is some cheaper way to get all the sports my husband wants , including in-market games.
DirecTV Now offers this kind of service for about $45 - $60 a month. I signed up for a trial for a few months. I canceled it for a couple of reasons:
[ul]
[li]The selection of cable channels wasn’t great - no Smithsonian channel, for example[/li][li]The price was about the same as adding a TV option to my internet[/li][li]the on screen guide was slow and froze up sometimes. It would also take a while when switching channels[/li][/ul]