Disney+ Ads And A New Price Increase Are Coming (1 Viewer)

[Neil S. Bulk]

From the L.A. Times.

If you can't read it, here's the relevant news:

An ad tier is coming to Disney+ on December 8 and will cost $8 a month. The "premium" tier without ads will be $11 a month.

More coverage here.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Much higher than I had predicted on the last HTU podcast. ($5.99 for ads, $9.99 for ad-free). May have to consider the $15 bundle (ad-free D+ with Hulu and ESPN+ with ads, yet I would never watch the latter) when my 3-year Disney+ sub runs out in October. With what I'm subscribed to now (D+ and ad-supported Hulu), I would be paying $19 without the bundle.

 

[dpippel]

Welp, time to cancel my subscription and move D+ to the backburner.

 

[TonyD]

I have the Hulu + D+ + Espn+ included with my cell phone plan.
Hulu has ads, D+ and ESPN+ do not.
I wonder if that will get changed.

 

[JohnRice]

My all-ad-free bundle price of $19.99 isn’t changing. Hulu is an absolute for me, and I absolutely want ad-free, so this is pretty easy for me.

 

[John Dirk]

We have Netflix included with our cell plan. When they last increased prices our bill went up by $5.00/month. Before this, the carrier had absorbed the increases so I felt it was fair for them to share the love this time around.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

My initial Disney+ pre-paid 3 year subscription ends in November. I think I will move to the D+ bundle with ESPN+ and Hulu and just keep that during the NHL regular season. I don't really care about Hulu, and can live with Disney+ for only six months a year.

 

[TonyD]

My D+ 3 year plan is and has been on hold for a little over a year since we signed up with Verizon cell.

Hopefully someone involved will clarify if the people on thes cell phone bundles will be affected. (effected?)

 

[DaveF]

I might be canceling D+ for a while when my 3 year deal ends. $11 a month is doable, but I’m not watching as much as I’ve got a bit of Franchise Fatigue.

I looked at the VZW combo deal as I’m changing my plan, but those promos don’t let you pay the difference to get Hulu ad-free, so they’re worthless to me.

 

[Capt D McMars]

Much higher than I had predicted on the last HTU podcast. ($5.99 for ads, $9.99 for ad-free). May have to consider the $15 bundle (ad-free D+ with Hulu and ESPN+ with ads, yet I would never watch the latter) when my 3-year Disney+ sub runs out in October. With what I'm subscribed to now (D+ and ad-supported Hulu), I would be paying $19 without the bundle.

Going back to an "With Ads" format for me is the kiss of death!!! Roku hasa plethora of FREE with ads format, if that's what you like. But for us that love "ad free" programing Disney can take those options and...

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Going back to an "With Ads" format for me is the kiss of death!!! Roku hasa plethora of FREE with ads format, if that's what you like. But for us that love "ad free" programing Disney can take those options and...

I am not a fan of the ad-supported versions of services, either. We get Peacock for free with our Comcast account, and I rarely watch it because I am annoyed by the commercials. We also used to get Hulu for free with our old Sprint cell phone account, but we didn't watch it too much for the same reason. I recently discovered that I could get a year of the ad-supported version of Paramount+ for free through our T-Mobile account, but didn't even bother signing up -- we had the ad-free version for one year and didn't watch it much. Cannot imagine wanting to watch it with commercials.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

No mentions of pricing (changes) for annual plans though... I'm currently on the D+ annual til Feb. Assuming they also hike that substantially by then, I might consider switching to only keeping it active for ~1/2 year at a time -- the family doesn't like me only doing a month or two at a time, and D+ does keep adding/releasing new stuff of interest pretty much year-round.

I'll probably just cancel Hulu and maybe do my usual reactivate for a month-or-two once or twice a year, if that -- we really don't use Hulu much, if at all, and kept the ad-supported plan around partly because of a great deal that lasted for ~1/2 a year until recently. Zero interest in ESPN+.

FWIW, if you try to cancel (at least Hulu anyway), they'll probably offer you another short deal -- that's what happened 2x for me w/ Hulu this year... although the last offer (a few days ago) was just 1 free month.

_Man_

 

[Capt D McMars]

I am not a fan of the ad-supported versions of services, either. We get Peacock for free with our Comcast account, and I rarely watch it because I am annoyed by the commercials. We also used to get Hulu for free with our old Sprint cell phone account, but we didn't watch it too much for the same reason. I recently discovered that I could get a year of the ad-supported version of Paramount+ for free through our T-Mobile account, but didn't even bother signing up -- we had the ad-free version for one year and didn't watch it much. Cannot imagine wanting to watch it with commercials.

Agreed, all of these streaming services were originally created as an alturnative to cable. Cable, is a land of live, ad landen, time sucking hellscapes!!! You probably remember the call to arms of "Cut the Cable"!!!
Now these streaming services are crying poverty and again, slapping an inferior format on the backs of it's customers. Prime Video is a "prime" example, it's not like Jeff Bazos is hurting for money, right?
In the beginning all was FREE, unless you wanted to rent a more recent movie, like Red Box ect.

Now since IMBd has over ridden so many of Primes TV series that were free on the platform, most of these became Free With ADS. Now Prime is a bipolar platform of sometimes yes, sometimes no to ad free programing. Which leaves most of us reaching for the remote to flee this sinking ship!!!

It seems that these streaming services need to learn the same truth that cable is still wrestling with, that is...You need US, we Don't need YOU!!! Cutting the cable has increased over the years and as the price goes up and quality goes down more of thier customer base will flee as well.

Putting the bottom line before the customers satisfaction quotient is a fomula for disaster. For those of us, that have aquiered a nice collection of films and TV series, we all know...as long as it's conveient for us to keep these streaming services its fine, but there is a tipping point where convienience is trumped by pricing or drop in the quality of the service.

Going back to the days of TV Antennas and Free with ads programing, after being given true "Ad Free Programing" is like trying to unsee the "man behind the curtain"...it's just doesn't work!!!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I don't understand why anyone woulda stuck w/ using Amazon Prime for streaming (all that much) anyway, except they actually wanted the free 2-day-or-less Amazon deliveries (or maybe the "no rush" rewards?) and only do Prime Video as a bonus perk, not real reason for subscribing...

I only subscribe very sporadically whenever I have clear use of Prime delivery (usually around the holiday shopping season) and never liked using Prime Video -- and I usually reactivate on some free/discounted trial deal...

_Man_

 

[Malcolm R]

They're finding that the pure streaming business model doesn't work, so they're now grasping at straws and resorting to advertising to try and make the system profitable.

I expect at some point in the future they'll begin adding cancellation "penalties" so people are discouraged from jumping around month-to-month, and demanding a minimum contract term (like 1 year) in order to subscribe.

In a few years it will be just like cable TV all over again.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I expect at some point in the future they'll begin adding cancellation "penalties" so people are discouraged from jumping around month-to-month, and demanding a minimum contract term (like 1 year) in order to subscribe.

In a few years it will be just like cable TV all over again.

IF that happens, I'll do the same as I did w/ cable and just cold turkey cut the cord (for most services), LOL. I've never had cable/sat for more than a year in the last 30 years -- and only had it somewhat regularly during my college days (largely because of apt-mates).

I've amassed far more than enough discs and now also digital library and continue to do so anyway. Yeah, that would likely mean having to wait for sell-through releases of a small handful of must-see shows on some of these services (or simply go w/out in rare cases), but oh well, nothing I hadn't done before...

I'll probably still keep Criterion Channel, NetFlix and likely Disney+ (and Peacock cheaply for my Mom) year-round in that case.


Not sure how they'd do that for Amazon Prime though since that's not primarily about streaming... and they're not about to unbundle the video streaming service. They might just stop offering discounted reactivation deals though...

_Man_

 

[Robert Crawford]

Price hikes were inevitable and will continue to happen in the future.

 

[Robert Crawford]

By the way, my three year Disney+ subscription runs out in early November. I'll make up my mind then, but I already have subscriptions to ESPN+ and Hulu.

 

[DaveF]

I don't understand why anyone woulda stuck w/ using Amazon Prime for streaming (all that much) anyway, except they actually wanted the free 2-day-or-less Amazon deliveries (or maybe the "no rush" rewards?) and only do Prime Video as a bonus perk, not real reason for subscribing...

I only subscribe very sporadically whenever I have clear use of Prime delivery (usually around the holiday shopping season) and never liked using Prime Video -- and I usually reactivate on some free/discounted trial deal...
_Man_

Prime has had fantastic shows. Man In The High Castle and The Expanse are the exemplars.

 

[Robert Crawford]

From the L.A. Times.

If you can't read it, here's the relevant news:

An ad tier is coming to Disney+ on December 8 and will cost $8 a month. The "premium" tier without ads will be $11 a month.

More coverage here.

If the rate hike doesn't happen until December then I can probably do an annual subscription one last time on this current annual subscription. Then at the end of 2023, I can decide what I'm going to do in the future.