More Bundles Are Coming: This week, Verizon introduced a different kind of "bundle" to their wireless customers, offering a discount for subscribers who signed up for both Netflix and Paramount+ with Showtime via the company's +play streaming hub. The news seemed to confirm what Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav suggested in a keynote presentation earlier this month; unless streaming services themselves collaborate to offer package deals that keep subscription costs down, third-party platforms like Roku, Amazon Prime Video Channels, and others will step in and do it on their behalf. Basic Plans Are Cheaper Now: Though it seems like streaming services raise their rates all the time -- and a few services, like Hulu and Apple TV+, are a few dollars more per month than they were in 2020 -- the introduction of ad-supported tiers by a number of platforms have helped to keep costs in check. A baseline Netflix subscription in the US was $8.99 in May of 2020 and just $6.99 today, thanks to the introduction of ads, while WB Discovery has dramatically dropped its lowest-cost plan. The cheapest HBO Max subscription in 2020 was still $14.99; today, an ad-supported plan runs just $10 per month. The Curious Case of Disney+: The addition of premium bells and whistles like 4K Ultra HD streams and more simultaneous viewers watching content at once has allowed Netflix to hike the price its top-of-the-line plan considerably over the past three years. Netflix's upper tier was $15.99 in 2020 and now tops out at $19.99 per month. But Disney+ is the most fascinating case of all. In May of 2020, there was just one Disney+ plan; a "basic" package costing $6.99 per month. The platform has since brought in ads, but the basic ad-supported plan is still more expensive than the original package, running $7.99/month. The new premium ad-free tier costs $10.99/month, a $4 price over the comparable experience from just three years ago. |
