Streaming services are basically just cable now | TechCrunch Minute

Disney and Warner Brothers Discovery Maybe Reinventing the Cable Bundle when You cover tech for as many years as I Have you realize that it's all just one Big cycle I'm not saying that nothing Changes but you do realize that a lot of New products are essentially old ideas In new Distribution Systems podcasts Have become YouTube videos Instagram Posts are basically just Facebook albums With memes mixed in and streamers look More and more like the cable bundles That they were built to replace Disney And Warner Brothers discovery recently Announced a new partnership that will Bring together Disney Plus Hulu and Max Into one super bundle remember all of These Services were already created Through corporate consolidation and Bundling Max for example is essentially A bundle of HBO with CNN Turner Classic Movies Bleacher Report Discovery HGTV And the DC Universe a lot of details Like pricing haven't been released yet It doesn't sound like this will be a Standalone streaming service instead it Be similar to the Disney bundle where You get access to multiple streamers for A single lower price there'll be Versions with and without ads right now If you subscribe to all three services With ads in the US it would be $25 a Month so you can probably assume it'll Be less in the bundle and there may be

Even more streaming bundles on the Horizon with Paramount and NBC Universal Reportedly exploring ways to merge Paramount plus and peacock this is good News right I think anyone who's been Following the streaming explosion has Probably been annoyed with how you now Need four or five or even more services Where previously you could get by with One or two at the same time it does feel A little like what's old is new again Where what was supposed to be an Affordable and flexible alternative to Cable looks more and more like cable Itself in this case one of the reasons Streamers are embracing the bundle is to Lock customers in and convince them not To unsubscribe when stranger things or Their other favorite show finishes a Season now this is a long way off but if Things keep going in this direction it's Not hard to imagine that in the future We could end up with streaming bills That are just as large as our cable Bills and relatively few ways to pick And choose what we want and maybe that's A good thing from a certain perspective One of the reasons we had those long Actors and writer strikes last year is Because the extremely lucrative cable System is being replaced by streaming Where the economics are much shakier in Fact until very recently Netflix was the Only streaming service that wasn't

Losing a lot of money now Max and Disney Plus are eing out a small profit I don't Know how to square this circle of Wanting consumer choice and a healthy Entertainment industry but I can tell You I will be signing up for this bundle See you tomorrow