Disney Raising Price of Disney+ Subscription to $10.99 and Launching $7.99 Ad-Supported Tier

[alexandr]

Agreed 100%. If there are ads, it'd better be free.

The only way these new models will die is if people simply don't buy them. Same if they continue to raise their prices over and over - cancel, or they will keep doing it.

They don't care if people complain all day. Only when enough people cancel will they change their pricing.

We have other options.

Enough is enough.

Exactly so. I see here that some people are ok with this, but I'm certainly not, and I reckon I'm not the only one)

 

[webkit]

So basically we are back to cable TV ?

Not unless each cable TV channel offered both ad-free and ad-supported plans.
Not unless each cable TV channel allowed you to subscribe or unsubscribe monthly.

 

[Dionte]

Only keep one/two max a month, binge watch all your favorites during that 30 days.

 

[ghboard2010]

That still exists, but now you have to pay even more.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but somehow paid subscriptions with ads make absolutely no sense to me. If I'm paying for something it better not have f—n ads.

$7.99 for ads!?!?!?!!!; no thank you, I'll save my $8/month, more money food{my greater priority}, and more gas for travelin' to get food. Somebody is buying the "not a recession kool-aid", good luck Dizzy+/-, hope it all crashes and burns as well it should.

If I want accept to 'ads', I'll get an antenna to pick-up local broadcasts, one cost for the damn arial and done with it.

 

[webkit]

Digital service doesn't work like gas that can run low or unavailable due to demands. Gaining millions of subscribers already increased the profit without adding many employments. Everything else just scale up.

I wasn't talking about a supply factor like gasoline. If demand for a steaming service is increasing, it would not be unusual or surprising to see the company increase prices to profit even more from its popularity as they try to determine the price/subscriber sweet spot that maximizes profit while also monitoring action of the competition, etc.

 

[Danoc]

.

 

[webkit]

Oh... and you can only watch those shows on one TV in your house... unless you rent another crappy box for another TV.

Actually, a lot of cable companies have apps that allow you to watch cable TV content on your computer, smart TV, mobile device, etc.

 

[Shirasaki]

Careful with that, I've had books I bought on Kindle disappear, and movies on iTunes Store/Apple TV disappear as well, even though I purchased them.

Yeah. Even though music is supposed to be drm free, videos aren’t, so does e-books etc. That’s where decryption comes into play.

You don’t need to worry as long as you have them downloaded somewhere, which is what I’ll be doing. I’m also planning on getting a 1TB iPhone 14 Pro just to be able to do that

Not really. If the “content” is within the app container, you still can’t really do much in terms of preserving it. DRM can render your downloaded local contents useless, unless you decrypt them somehow.

 

[chewbaka]

Probably the one who had Disney+ for 3 years, at least if you’re not buying new releases at around $20 a pop. (At $20 a pop, that’s about 13 movies.) If you’re buying older Disney films at around $10 to $15, that’s about 17 to 25 movies. I’m hard pressed to think of 17 to 25 Disney movies I’d want to keep forever. 13 maybe, 25 no. (And that’s even counting recent Disney acquisitions like Marvel or LucasArts, though, granted, the MCU doesn’t really appeal to me, trying to get caught up with it would be like trying to watch every season of Gunsmoke or The Simpsons, it would get super tired super fast.)

Right… and my Blu-Rays will last me far more than three years. Eventually I’ll get around to backing them up. I’ll have them until I die.

 

[webkit]

Name a single TV (or streaming) service that has ever dropped in price.

It has happened e.g., Hulu dropped the price of its basic plan $2/month in early 2019. They have since increased prices again.

There have also been a variety of discount promotions over the years.

 

[aaronhead14]

Booooo

 

[chewbaka]

That’s the beauty of streaming—it’s much cheaper if you only watch things once. Even then, one movie a month or one show every 2 months is all it takes to pay for itself. If you find yourself watching that much the math checks out. If not, it still only costs (now) $11 to watch any show or movie you want within a 1 month period. That’s bonkers value. I don’t even own a blue ray player—that’s a year of subscription alone. Also I can watch anywhere: plane, hotel, vacation with nary a disk binder in sight. And no dorky disk shelf either!

I totally get the appeal of ownership, don’t get me wrong, but streaming vs physical is not the same checkmate situation of digital ownership vs physical ownership.

The vast majority of what I own is film, not television. I’m also a re-watcher. I also have a 65” OLED panel and care immensely about quality. You simply can’t beat modern physical media there. For me, ownership makes FAR more sense than streaming. I understand that’s not true for everyone.

Eventually I’ll have my back catalog built and my spending will slow to the trickle of the handful of new titles that appeal to me each year, and I’ll buy those on sale like everything else I collect.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Only keep one/two max a month, binge watch all your favorites during that 30 days.

Until the day comes when streaming services start mandating annual subscriptions to keep people from doing fly-bys.

 

[tgwaste]

Soon as my 3 year early bird special ends… peace ✌🏻

same!

 

[summiter]

This is great news! Now I’m saving $10.99 a month by continuing to not subscribe. Can’t wait until next year when my savings will increase to $14.99!

 

[alexhardaker]

Yeah. Even though music is supposed to be drm free, videos aren’t, so does e-books etc. That’s where decryption comes into play.

Not really. If the “content” is within the app container, you still can’t really do much in terms of preserving it. DRM can render your downloaded local contents useless, unless you decrypt them somehow.

I addressed the videos being DRM-free in another reply to someone else.

Most, if not all, are now DRM-free. I checked all of my purchases & most of them were not protected files.

 

[FriendlyMackle]

Careful with that, I've had books I bought on Kindle disappear, and movies on iTunes Store/Apple TV disappear as well, even though I purchased them.

With ebooks there's a simple solution to prevent losing anything you've purchased. Download the file to your computer, and then decrypt the book and save in an open format. Voila. You'll never 'lose' the book and you can manage ALL of your books from various sources in one database/program (I use Calibre). Yes, I know, technically 'illegal'...but it's my copy for my own personal use (only).
Though I don't really think it's too likely books will be revoked by the merchant. The only cases I'm aware of were when they sold items to which they did not have the proper rights.
As to movies/tv, the only solution is to buy your own copies and store them offline.

 

[FriendlyMackle]

This seems a tough one to blame on “supply chain”…

I'm pretty sure that the Disney execs got big fat multimillion dollar bonuses each of these past years!

 

[Devin Breeding]

My buddy had all his movies purchased on DVD, then when Blu-Ray came around repurchased each one of them to complete his Blu-Ray library. I'm not laughing at you, just curious if they will have some newer format and people will have to jump again.

How many months of streaming would the total cost of those movies purchased twice be?

 

[Devin Breeding]

Curious, what is the cost increase for Hulu live TV (ad-free), ESPN, Disney bundle? Did I see up to $87?

 

[Ashbash75]

I have 2 words Sonarr & Radarr 😈😈

 

[FriendlyMackle]

Yeah. Even though music is supposed to be drm free, videos aren’t, so does e-books etc. That’s where decryption comes into play.

Not really. If the “content” is within the app container, you still can’t really do much in terms of preserving it. DRM can render your downloaded local contents useless, unless you decrypt them somehow.

There are music services where you can purchase lossless audio files and download them and truly 'own' the copies. I've used Quobuz in the past. I also used to purchase CDs and rip those songs for my own use, so as to have perfect copies (saved as FLAC or ALAC files). That's back when I was buying music. I haven't bought an album since around 2016.

Now I mostly just stream music, as I really like the variety and vast library from worldwide sources.

Video is much more difficult. While I have successfully ripped my own DVDs to watchable digital formats, my few BluRay rips have been much more difficult, and weren't always successful. It became more trouble than it was worth in terms of my time (and the frustration of a seemingly perfect decryption still ending up with missing pieces).

 

[SoldOnApple]

Imma gonna start going yo my public library and read books for free if these streamimg prices keep increasing.

 

[SoldOnApple]

Right… and my Blu-Rays will last me far more than three years. Eventually I’ll get around to backing them up. I’ll have them until I die.

I said the same thing about my vinyl, then my tapes, then my CDs, then my SACDs, then my mp3s, then my Betamax, then my VHS, then my laserdisc, then my HD-DVD, then my 1080p blurays…

 

[jasonefmonk]

38% is higher than they raised the Canadian prices; 33%. They added Star content in Canada though so at least the library burgeoned.