Disney+ and Hulu Ad-Free Pricing Going Up in October, Password Sharing Crackdown Coming

[skaertus]

Of all the streaming services I've used, Disney Plus had by a large margin, the least new content. Note: I'm in Europe so perhaps less available here in the first place!?

It may be true. I do not subscribe to many services, but Netflix has much more new and diverse content.

Their main draw had always been their massive back catalog. It’s unrealistic to expect Disney to pump out new marvel and star wars at the same pace that Netflix puts out new shows. As it is, people are already getting marvel / star wars fatigue.

I think Disney made the mistake of entering the streaming space in the first place. When you keep churning out content, the franchises start to lose what made them appealing in the first place.

There’s also less reason for people to catch the latest Disney movie at the cinema if they know it will eventually come to their streaming platform (I haven’t watched a marvel movie since endgame).

And when people tire of your franchises, your merchandise and theme parks also suffer. It’s a vicious cycle.

Disney also loses the money they could have made from licensing their content to other services like Netflix.

I get the appeal of having an evergreen library of child-friendly content that parents can use to babysit their children. Problem is - the current economics simply aren’t working out.

Maybe the right play is to simply not play and shutter the service entirely?

Disney has made many mistakes here.

The first perhaps was to enter the streaming space, as you mentioned. This was a big mistake.

Everyone was trying to cash out on streaming video services, and everyone wanted exclusive content to not fall into the problems faced with music streaming. The problem is, each exclusive show may cost dozens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, and they must keep coming out frequently. People will not subscribe to multiple streaming services for long, because it is expensive and they do not even have the time to watch everything available. How is this thing going to pay off for Netflix, Disney, HBO, Amazon, Apple, Paramount, Lionsgate, and many more, each needing hundreds of millions of subscribers to justify its high costs?

It was doomed from the start, and it is absolutely incredible that so many large companies, supposedly run by smart people, were caught in this trap which was so easy to see from the beginning.

The second mistake Disney made was perhaps the quality of new shows. They focused on blockbuster Marvel and Star Wars shows, which were very expensive to make. People eventually get tired of this. Disney has so many properties, but they insist on Marvel and Star Wars. Of course, there is fatigue. Then, every new show has to be hugely expensive and a blockbuster. Willow, for instance, is an interesting property, but it does not have to turn into a bland and uninteresting blockbuster show.

Plus, the shows, even the blockbuster ones, are not very high quality. The storylines are mostly poor. A few Disney+ series were nice, but most of them are just over-expensive meh stuff. Whenever I watch Disney+ shows lately, they seem to float around the very same themes as if screenwriters were tied up. Netflix series tend to be much more interesting in this respect. Some of them are European productions that do not have to follow Disney's strict corporate guidelines to please every board member, so the stories are more fluid even when the shows are less elaborate.

Netflix has won the streaming wars. Disney will eventually shut down its service and become an additional cost Netflix add on where it will get some money to subscribe, some money per stream and some money from ads. They will steal it all from the artists except give them a small per stream amount

I think Disney+ will survive with multiple changes, but not being the cash cow it was originally thought to be. But most of the streaming services will shut down.

 

[MNGR]

(said right after showing how it's an annual thing)​

It will be.
Glad we have almost everything on physical media.
It makes sense to me Raising prices when subscription rates are getting lower

 

[laptech]

Do the public get to see the full accounts of the company? because if the company keep on raising prices as it appears to have done I feel the public have a right to know where the losses are coming from because what if the company is wasting money on vanity projects and very risky projects or risky purchases (bad investments) and when they go wrong the company bosses say 'not to worry, we will past on our costly mistakes to our customers'.

 

[ninethirty]

Do the public get to see the full accounts of the company? because if the company keep on raising prices as it appears to have done I feel the public have a right to know where the losses are coming from because what if the company is wasting money on vanity projects and very risky projects or risky purchases (bad investments) and when they go wrong the company bosses say 'not to worry, we will past on our costly mistakes to our customers'.

Yes, you get to see full accounts of the company.

As a subscriber, you have a right to cancel your account if you don't like the way the company is going. If you want a say in it, you need to become a shareholder.

 

[Ethosik]

I don’t like streaming anything these days. How are things going to be preserved? Can we watch some of the Marvel shows in 40 years like I can watch the OG Star Trek still?

 

[El Szomorito]

Everyone was trying to cash out on streaming video services, and everyone wanted exclusive content to not fall into the problems faced with music streaming. The problem is, each exclusive show may cost dozens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, and they must keep coming out frequently. People will not subscribe to multiple streaming services for long, because it is expensive and they do not even have the time to watch everything available. How is this thing going to pay off for Netflix, Disney, HBO, Amazon, Apple, Paramount, Lionsgate, and many more, each needing hundreds of millions of subscribers to justify its high costs?

Amazon might be the exception here. Prime Video runs on their own infrastructure. Just like Netflix and Disney, not sure where the others are hosted. But part of the money people pay to Netflix, Disney, etc goes to Amazon via AWS. And these three are the biggest streamers by subscribers.

 

[gk_brown]

I will be canceling Disney+ once Ahsoka is done airing. Will sign up again when Andor season 2 is out.

 

[gk_brown]

most of the streaming services will shut down

I doubt this will happen. Streaming is too convenient. The only alternative is cable, which is also ridiculously expensive and much less convenient.

I think it's more likely that services will consolidate. We're seeing this already with Paramount+/Showtime and HBO/Max.

 

[MNGR]

This makes a lot of sense now that Disney is phasing out physical media, starting with Australia (their test bed I guess): https://reclaimthenet.org/disney-begins-to-wind-down-physical-media-starting-in-australia

Personally, optical media forever! Thanks Disney for really making the choice easy.

I actually think this will cause torrenting and "alternate" distribution channels to increase in popularity. I am sure that soon we won't be able to just go out and buy the movie/TV Show etc. that we want to on DVD/Blu-ray/4K Blu-ray, if Disney has the rights to it. Unbelievable!

So I guess the only way we will see is in the theaters.
We have about 1600 discs (dvd, br, 4k)
Bye-bye Disney+ and Hulu

 

[zorinlynx]

Please, people, think about it. You're defending huge companies that don't care about you and exist only to extract as much profit from you as possible. Sharing a Netflix account is not "stealing", they even encouraged it a few years back with a tweet. They have a right to change their policy, but don't act as if we were doing something wrong before because we weren't.

So many people here do it for Apple too... I mean seriously I do like Apple products but they're still a big greedy corporate entity that doesn't care about you, just like Netflix, Disney, and so on.

 

[Premium1]

I miss the days when sharing accounts to split the cost was promoted and not shunned... The good old days.

 

[LlamaLarry]

At this rate it would be cheaper to pay for a good private tracker and download what you want to watch. I try not to add up all the streaming services I pay for lest I head down that path.

 

[Premium1]

🤣

Gouging? Did you miss the part about how their streaming business is losing money? I believe the only streaming service that's profitable at the moment is Netflix.

The price increases are meant to put them in the black.

Nah someone has to pay for Iger's multiple homes and yachts. He didn't come out of retirement to not get a nice bonus/golden parachute.

 

[N0ughtsAndCr0sses]

Did someone say dodgy websites? I skipped to the end, sorry.

 

[raindogg]

So less shows for more money? No thank you .

 

[MysticCow]

The pricing increases and the crackdown on password sharing come after a $512 million loss for Disney's streaming division in the third fiscal quarter of 2023, which is better than the $1.1 billion loss from the year-ago quarter

Maybe, just maybe, this is because all their stuff is spread across three platforms and…well…any damn idiot can see that you need ONE umbrella and not THREE or more.

Also maybe, just maybe, near hyperinflation (you know, the whole “Give Every American $4000 Act of 2020” signed into law by an orange man) means that the operating costs of doing business has increased so dramatically that they are forced to raise prices on all three services (again, see previous paragraph).

 

[ninethirty]

Please, people, think about it. You're defending huge companies that don't care about you and exist only to extract as much profit from you as possible. Sharing a Netflix account is not "stealing", they even encouraged it a few years back with a tweet.

So many people here do it for Apple too... I mean seriously I do like Apple products but they're still a big greedy corporate entity that doesn't care about you, just like Netflix, Disney, and so on.

I don't need big companies to care about me. I have friends and family for that. I don't know why people keep feeling like companies need to actually care about you (the grand "you") and your problems.

Big companies produce big content, in a way that my friends and family cannot, and if I think their price is fair, I'll exchange my money for their content. Making money is their entire reason for being, and they've concluded that people like us are likely to pay them for the kinds of content they create. If you're opposed to that, don't pay. There's nothing wrong with the rest of us liking it.

And honestly, expecting people to pay for their own accounts as opposed to using their friends passwords is not unreasonable at all. People feel oddly entitled these days.

 

[MysticCow]

huge companies that don't care about you and exist only to extract as much profit from you as possible.

As much as it pains me, the function of a company in a money-based system is to make a profit. Your feels are irrelevant to them, as you mentioned.

You can attempt a shareholder revolt, but most won’t go with you so long as their wallet is larger.

 

[cocky jeremy]

One less service to deal with then.

 

[chetzar]

Add up all these streaming services and it’s more expensive than a cable bill.
Goodbye Disney+.

 

[Powerguru]

Disney became over confident after they launched Disney plus. The quality of Disney shows is worst. I mean the story line. Which is basically a rinse and repeat or some nonsense, which people are tired or at least we are. For us, we won’t renew Disney plus. Let it die. We have not opened Disney plus app for last 7 months. And we don’t miss a thing. I have all the old Disney classics on iTunes. They need to get their house in order. I don’t want to pay for their social causes. So buh bye Disney plus.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I'm also keeping Amazon Prime, (HBO) Max, and SkyShowtime (previously Paramount+), which are all relatively cheap.

Paramount + was a disaster here in DE since launch. For months, everything only as PCM 2.0 albeit lots of content but nothing in 4K even now. Terrible Rez. A new software update also broke any memory (on my system) it retained of any shows watched..I’m done with it now.

How are you finding HBO? It still doesn’t have a license here in Germany and probably won’t for a few years.

 

[Ameer_1]

Just so you guys know if you have a sibling, son or daughter you could get Hulu for $1.99 a month

 

[Pezimak]

I paid for Disney Plus for a couple of years but got bored of the woke drivel boring content and stopped. So I now I share someone’s account and literally could not care if I can’t do that. Disney is not losing money due to password sharing.

 

[psac]

I [almost] did the same: early adopter of the 3 yr plan. After a year, was Disney'd out. Rode out the last two and have since gone down to a yearly plan (with the idea we'll phase it out). Only thing keeping us on it is my kids' affinity for The Simpsons. Yes, the show is that good.

Despite all of the classic Disney content, marvel, star wars series, etc., the Simpsons is actually the most viewed show on Disney+.