Summary
In 2024, Americans spent 23% less on streaming services, averaging $42.38 per month, down from $55.04 in 2023.
Factors include “streaming fatigue,” with 27.8% overwhelmed by the number of apps, and increased spending on cable/satellite TV, which rose 11% to $89.29 monthly.
Many switched to cheaper ad-supported streaming options, which hit a record 43% of subscriptions.
The average American now has two streaming services, watches four hours daily, and 26.5% share accounts with others, reflecting shifting viewing and spending habits.
Every streaming service now hordes their decent IP and sprinkles it in amongst a vast pile of shovelware content. They prize exclusives but don’t adequately communicate what they have access to or why, or when the rights to that content expire.
There’s nothing more ridiculous than paying for two streaming services, having shared access to two more, and then realizing the old movie you want to watch is only available as an ala carte $1.99 rental on a 5th service.
At that point just Yarr that shit.
I cancelled my Netflix subscription just recently after being a member since 2001. I also cancelled YouTube TV and YouTube Premium last month. I will be cancelling Prime this month after I figure out what the implications are with my Prime credit card. That leaves Spotify which is heavily used by me and my family.
You just lose 2% on purchases from Amazon. You’d have to buy a lot from Amazon to not save money by cancelling prime. Like $7000
Different in different countries
I use my Chase Prime card for 5% back at Whole Foods markets plus whatever Prime discounts the card gets me.
Well no shit. They do everything in their power to make the experience as shitty as possible, worse day by day. Insert surprised pikachu face
I use a nice app called BitTorrent.
Does it let you stream now? I have to use Stremio for that.
Or do you mean protocol?
BitTorrent is just to download afaik. I either just play the video or ure Jellyfin. Stremio is good as well
I dont understand why people ever paid for streaming. Stremio is fantastic and free.
Any addons you recommend?
Torrentio
Does this operate similarly to vlc-bittorrent or is it just clearnet streams of torrents?
I dont know what that is. This just uses bittorrent to stream things.
It has a UI like Netflix but doesn’t tell you to watch something else shitty when its not in their library, because it has all the torrents.
Also subtitles “just work”. I really dont understand how they do it, but its fantastic.
vlc-bittorrent is meant to stream bittorrent files on VLC. So yes the two are similar.
Streaming services suffer from content delivery. Users stay in analysis paralysis looking for what to watch, ultimately watch nothing, and scroll on their phones instead.
Worse, they made the selection process insufferable by auto playing shows and movies while you’re trying to select/learn more.
Lastly, from like 2018 on, they started losing titles to other streaming services and it just got worse and worse of a service to invest in. And since then, prices have gone up, and stupid password sharing bullshit has made that worse.
Spotify is the only streaming service I’ve ever paid for and few months back I even canceled that.
We needed a family plan for music streaming because we all do stream a lot of music and if you like to discover new stuff- my wife and daughter do, I don’t, it’s just harder to do if you expect to purchase or pirate music.
But we did get rid of all other streaming services and get the YouTube Premium family plan, which cost slightly more than Spotify, has the same amount of music, still has the whole ‘discover new stuff’ thing with their music app, allows you to watch or listen to YouTube videos while in other apps, lets you also listen to YouTube videos with your phone off, and, best of all, no YouTube ads.
Yes, I’m giving money to Google. I’m also not giving money to a bunch of other awful companies and you just have to pick and choose in this capitalist nightmare world if you want to live a non-shitty life.
Edit: YouTube also offers a bunch of streaming movies and TV shows that are not just crappy copies someone has uploaded or whatever, which is a nice bonus.
Edit 2: Forgot to say that you can put five people on the family plan, so we put our mothers-in-law on it too, they contribute, so it is actually cheaper for us than Spotify.
My GF still binge watches content constantly. ever since covid started tailing off i haven’t been able to do it.
I had to put my foot down about squid game S2 so we could watch it together and we watched it over three days instead of just doing it in one.
That’s a sad way to spend a day off
she works 12 hour shifts on her feet. i can’t fault her for wanting to veg out
You know the ole adage, when yo-ho is easier, yo-ho it be.
Gouging pricing, fewer interesting shows. Water flows downhill.
Don’t forget paying for the privilege of watching commercials. That caused me to cancel 2 subs this year.
When people talk about runaway capitalism, this is a good example. I tried to watch something on Amazon Prime because I had briefly subscribed to it. No lie: six commercials before it started, and ad breaks throughout! This was on a service that I was paying for! Enshittification in full effect. Fuck these giant, greedy corporations, too much revenue will never be enough…
I paid for the 4 screen 4k subscription for Netflix for ages, one of the reasons being that I could share my account with a good friend who was a student.
Then they decided to dictate who I can share with despite the fact that I’m paying for the ability to view on four screens simultaneously.
Now on the rare occasions I want to watch anything I find alternative ways.
I finally got my media server back up after being down for a couple years, and it’s a breath of fresh air. I didn’t realize how many great movies are just flat out not available to stream without “renting/purchasing” them.
And no more fucking ads.
People also have less disposable income. It’s easy to be lazy and keep a streaming service or two going that you’re not really using when money is flowing. When you have to cinch the belt, you tend to remember that you can cancel at any time and just jump from one service to another.
Assuming you don’t have more… piratic tendencies.
Yes, “streaming fatigue” is the problem. It’s not that services are charging more for worse content. The enshittification isn’t the issue people are just randomly tired of streaming for unexplainable reasons. Very insightful.
Welcome to modern journalism, where we dance around the issue trying not to upset advertisers, and any info is incidental at best.
Breaking news: americans dont want to work 14h shifts, why are people getting lazy?
They’ve carefully worded it as one of the problems. Not THE problem.
Yeah, Dwayne Johnson is cool and all… but maybe give someone else a shot. If Verizon didn’t give me free Hulu and Disney, we wouldn’t have them, getting rid of Prime this year, and Netflix is pretty close to the chopping block. I watch a lot of YouTube and pay to not see ads. Probably continue that for a while. Just don’t get the value and as I get older, just less interested in any of the content. I find myself going back and watching things for the past decades.
We can do Chris Pratt, or Jack Black. But it needs to be one of those 3.
Yo-ho yo-ho
Yarr harr, fiddle dee dee
People are broke. Cut out the easy things first.
The trend will continue. You can’t bleed water from a stone. All of this has a ceiling.
People are likely spending less because they have to spend more in other areas. That won’t change, and wages certainly aren’t going up.
Every corporation everywhere cannot continue to increase profits year over year. It is a mathematical impossibility.
How long until streaming services will “reflect customer changes” with “improved” price points that reflect their “premium service” and “premium content”?
