Everyone from Business Insider to CNBC to the pay-walled Wall Street Journal couldn’t get enough of the catchy new buzzword this month — streamflation.
Certainly anyone with a over-the-top video subscription can easily figure out what “streamflation” means. But if you’ve been living in a cave, just broken out of Shawshank, or (yikes!) still have cable TV, here’s what the term is all about. And if it holds water. (Pun intended.)
In a nutshell, the press is in a collective tizzy because streaming services —evidently industry-wide — are increasing the prices of their subscriptions. But is this anything to fret about it? Does it signify the “end of an era”, as one media outlet calls it? Should you turn around and hightail it back into the loving arms of your cable TV provider? Well, let’s take a look.
Is streamflation something new?
No. Not at all. In fact, it’s pretty much been an industry norm for the past 5+ years. It’s right there in Chapter One of the The Streaming Service Playbook:
- Step 1: Launch with a super-low price
- Step 2: Accumulate subscribers
- Step 3: Increase price just a smidge after 1 year
- Step 4: Mollify subscribers with more (or better) content
- Step 5: Increase price again
- Step 6: Introduce cheaper ad-supported option
- Step 7: Increase price again
Essentially every streaming service has followed this roadmap, either precisely or very closely.
How much have streaming service prices increased?
If you’re fairly new to the streaming universe, perhaps a brief history lesson is in order. Therefore, it makes sense to use the world’s oldest major streaming service as the benchmark — Netflix. Then let’s look at 2 newer (and popular) services from the 2 major hemispheres of the streaming world — on-demand and live TV.
Netflix
Netflix launched in 2007 with a confusing (and expensive) pricing scheme, but promptly adjusted things the following year to become the bingefest that changed TV forever. It introduced an all-you-can-watch plan for $9/month and a $5/month plan for 2 hours of viewing (which made zero sense). It went to $12/month in 2013 with a “Premium” plan, but restructured its plans just a year, splitting them into SD and HD quality.
Another buck was added to the Standard plan in 2015, followed by more small price hikes in 2016, and 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2023. Then, in 2023, Netflix did what it always said it would never do — offer an ad-supported plan.
Check out our Netflix Review to see if it’s still the right choice for you.
Disney+
Disney+ followed the exact same path Netflix did, only it did so within a much shorter time frame. Launching in 2019 with a single ad-free plan for $6.99/month, it swiftly went to $7.99/month in 2021, $10.99 in 2022, and $13.99/month in 2023.
And just like Netflix, it introduced an ad-supported in 2022 so people could continue paying $7.99/month if they wished.
Check out our Disney Review to see if it’s still the right choice for you.
YouTube TV
The landscape of live TV streaming has not been any different. Google launched its live TV streaming service in 2017 with a single plan for $35/month. Two years later, YouTube TV cost $50 in 2019. But it still had a ways to go, raising its price to $64.99/month in 2020, then up to $72.99/month in 2023.
Like Netflix and Disney+, it offered a (rather insulting) fig leaf to subscribers by reducing its laughingly over-priced 4K Plus add-on from $19.99/month down to $9.99/month.
At least it clarified that it had waited a whole 3 years to raise its price again.
In the meantime, our YouTube TV Review can help you decide whether it’s the right live TV streaming service for you.
Streaming is still cheaper (and far more flexible)
Calling streaming TV more flexible than cable is kind of a misnomer, because that implies that cable TV offers flexibility.
The Financial Times (in a pay-walled article, no less) declared that the “golden era of cheap streaming” was over. That’s a bold statement for a media outlet that charges $10/month for the digital-only version of its ad-filled paper. (Read the full archived article here for free.)
It goes on to explain how a “basket of the top US streaming services will cost $87”, up from $73/month compared to last year. That’s more than the $83/month it claims the average cable package costs. The basket includes the following 6 services: Hulu, Max, Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock, and Disney+. (We should note that the 2022 prices in their chart add up to a few cents below $68, not $73.)
Math problems aside, the shrewd shoppers at Financial Times are subscribing to Hulu and Disney+ separately, when there’s a new bundle called Duo Premium that includes Disney+ and Hulu (both ad-free) for $19.99/month. Compared to paying for them separately, that’s a difference of $11.99, which is the price of 2 of the services in their basket (Paramount+ and Peacock). That also means FT‘s premium basket costs $75 and change as opposed to $87/month.
The Financial Times article also neglects to mention that Showtime closed its standalone streaming — which cost $10.99/month — and merged into Paramount+. So Paramount+ subscribers essentially now get Showtime for $2/month. (Granted, they don’t have a choice in the matter, unless they want to drop down to the ad-supported Essential plan at $5.99.)
The era of cheap streaming can continue — with ads. So, maybe it’s not such a golden era anymore, but it’s certainly not over. It’s more like silver or bronze. Also, seeing as TV is FULL OF ADS, comparing a cable subscription to ad-free plans is disingenuous at best. A more accurate comparison would be with the ad-supported plans in their basket of services, which comes to just under $45/month.
Being a shrewd streamer is key
As we’ve just illustrated, even if you’re subscribing to the premium plans for the top 6 on-demand streaming services, streaming is still cheaper than cable. But that doesn’t mean streaming services aren’t getting more expensive. They are! We just don’t think streamflation is anything new or a particularly accurate (or helpful) way to look at things.
Streaming services continue to increase their prices — and we obviously wish they didn’t. But it’s not like this some new industry trend that came out of nowhere. With more services in existence, there are more price hikes to go around. So it pays to be informed and stay on top of trends and prices when you need to.
This is where flexibility comes in. There’s no rule saying you need to subscribe to a service for all 12 months of the year — unless you go with an annual plan, of course. Keeping the “stream” puns alive, this is where implementing a catch and release strategy comes in handy.
Maybe you only watch Max for HBO shows like Succession, The White Lotus and The Last of Us, Hulu for Only Murders in the Building and The Bear, and Netflix for Stranger Things. You can easily subscribe to these services consecutively for 2-3 months each. After all, you can only watch one show at a time. It might take a bit of planning, but seeing as the traditional TV season barely exists anymore, you can now create your own!
Final thoughts
If devising and following a streaming schedule sounds like too much work, keep in mind most on-demand streaming services offer an annual plan. They typically equate to about 2 months free per year. Paying yearly can also lock in lower prices before “streamflation” rears its terrifying head and subscription fees increase again.
The main takeaway is that yes, streaming services increase prices, but streaming is still cheaper and far more flexible than cable.
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