Disney is raising the price of Disney+ and Hulu
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
The worst thing about this is that DVRs solved commercials on cable back in 1999, "unskippable" isn't an issue there.
Imagine the uproar and drama if the ad-skipping DVR was invented today. It simply wouldn't be allowed to happen.
So now if you want ad-free, you either pay extra in perpetuity for just that one feature , or you break the law. It's no wonder that piracy is back in such a big way.
My goal is not only skipping ads but also skipping around in program content with low latency and high responsiveness. This is because another result of the failing streaming media economic model is that content providers are "padding" the length of content they commission to cut their per-hour costs while retaining perceived value. So an 8 episode mini-series is really ~6 episodes of story stretched to fill 8 and now a two hour 'original' movie is just a bloated cut of a 95 minute tight story. Once you've paid for the actors, crew and sets, shooting longer scenes and using more coverage shots is cheap. Having a background in film and video production, it's surprisingly easy for me to spot content that's been padded and then self-edit it in real-time - although features like auto scene detection and variable speed playback (with audio pitch correction) would make it even better.
Even the better DVRs in cable/satellite boxes are too laggy and, of course, most don't provide much flexibility in skip increments and other necessary features. Media distributors are only providing DVR as a checkbox feature because they can up-charge for it but then hard-limiting its features because it hurts the other side of their business model. I don't expect the "almost acceptable" built-in DVR I have today to remain acceptable for long - because the DVR provider's incentives aren't aligned with mine. It's slowly going to keep getting nerfed, which is why a stand-alone DVR is the only viable option for the long-term. And thanks to HDCP DRM and the DMCA, the only DVRs which will give viewers what they want will be DIY hardware running open source components. My medium term plan is to train up an AI for auto-skipping commercials.
I had a DirecTV DVR box that had unskippable ads for some content. It would download fresh local ads from the internet into the ad breaks from the pre-recorded satellite content. Blocking the cable box from the internet just ensured it was always the same old ad content or forced the original ad segments but also limited/broke a lot of other features of the cable box.
It only did it on some shows on some networks. Paramount was the most obvious one, a lot of the recordings of their shows had that "feature" enabled.
I'm not the one that needs to do any crawling. Guess what I discovered these past couple of days? I get along fine without Hulu. And JFC, $20/month and I still get ads? Yeah, piss off with that shit, I'll read a book first.
I'm not so sure it's a keen business strategy to piss off a bunch of folks, and just days later while they're still a bit pissed, jack up the prices. Might work for some, for others like myself: "wow, check out the big, clanky balls on Iger".
Also, how many people even know that Disney is involved in Kimmel and how many of them even care?
My Disney+/Hulu/Max bundle is $32.99/month.
Paramount+, $12.99
Netflix, $24.99
Apple TV, $12.99
The ugliness of multiple subscriptions needed because of licensing etc. is starting to really add up...
Surely they can spend out of their $90B/year in annual profits. Certainly, companies need revenue to make new content, but they're also squeezing consumers for as much profit as possible.
Subscription Prices Gone Wild - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364292 - September 2025
Didn't cable TV used to be like $80-120 for top packages (equivalent to having all of the content subs)? What is that in today's dollars?
The whining about not having every single piece of costly media production at your fingertips at all times makes no sense to me, especially when there is so much other media available at many price points (including $0).
Perhaps cut down on screen time if that much needs to be spent.
Used to. Just like Netflix used to be $11.99. You can easily hit up to $200/month for TV with sports (and by this I mean just channel availability, not things like League Pass/Season Ticket) and some movie channels, and nothing too esoteric.
Like I feel like it's pretty common to be either a Netflix or Disney/Hulu household all the time, and then just subscribe to one other in any given month depending on what show you're mainly watching.
Like now that Slow Horses is back, it's time to wait a couple weeks and then switch to Apple TV for a month to catch the 6 episodes.
I'm becoming nostalgic for the Netflix DVD-by-mail era. Prioritizing your queue was important, since there were significant costs in returning a DVD and waiting for a new one to arrive. There was real anticipation in getting the next DVD, instead of binge-watching an entire series in one night without leaving the couch. We cared about what we watched since it wasn't readily available.
You can be just as intentional about your streaming services as you were about Netflix DVD's. You can prioritize your queue of upcoming shows, since there are significant costs in paying for a month of streaming you don't use. There's real anticipation in switching from Apple TV+ back to HBO, both of which generally release shows weekly, not at once. And then you can keep your list of movies you want to watch, and look forward to which ones will become available when you do switch streamers.
I mean, if you want to waste all your money subscribing to everything at once, then sure maybe everything is readily available. But most people I know, the thing they suddenly want to watch the most often isn't on a service they're currently subscribed to. So the anticipation you talk about continues to be a very real thing. Everything isn't readily available unless you've got lots of cash to burn.
And back in the day of Netflix DVD's, plenty of people watched network and cable TV just as mindlessly as you seem to think they do with streaming today... renting DVD's was an active intentional choice.