Snippet: The Never-Ending Price Hikes for Streaming Services ☇

Rachyl Jones for Fortune:

Half of the major streaming platforms in the U.S. now charge a monthly fee that’s double the price they charged when they initially came to market. And many of these streaming services haven’t even been around for ten years.

Consumers have grumbled, but have so far been willing to keep paying up. It’s hard to say where the breaking point will be for consumers, but given that analysts believe the platforms are likely to continue raising prices even further, we’ll probably find out soon enough. […]

For legacy media companies, increased streaming prices are a step towards recouping lost revenue from their slowly dying traditional television businesses. As consumers increasingly cancel their cable TV subscriptions in favor of streaming platforms, companies like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast and Paramount are losing money on their once reliably profitable TV businesses. […]

With so many streaming services, and no end in sight to price hikes, something will have to give at some point. The streaming industry is on the verge of losing some of its major players, analysts agree. “The macro, high-level view is that there are too many streaming services losing too much money, and someone is going to raise the white flag,” said Rich Greenfield, analyst at LightShed Partners.

Lots of people suggest “just going back to cable,” but prices for most of those services have also climbed, sometimes more significantly. On top of the higher base rate, most cable services are still tied to just a TV and require equipment fees.

While price increases are due to greed trying to make the services profitable, the current economic climate, mixed with the writers and actors strikes feels like a slap in the face to consumers. Mix in services that have too high of an opinion of themselves and consumers may eventually get fed up and unsubscribe for the last time. I know there have already been a few of those for me.