Many more people are jumping from one streaming subscription to another, a behavior that could have big implications for the entertainment industry.
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Americans are getting increasingly impulsive about hitting the cancellation button on their streaming services. More than 29 million — about a quarter of domestic paying streaming subscribers — have canceled three or more services over the last two years, according to Antenna, a subscription research firm. And the numbers are rising fast.
The data suggests a sharp shift in consumer behavior — far from the cable era, when viewers largely stuck with a single provider, as well as the early days of the so-called streaming wars, when people kept adding services without culling or jumping around.
Among these nomadic subscribers, some are taking advantage of how easy it is, with a monthly contract and simple click of a button, to hopscotch from one service to the next. Indeed, these users can be fickle — a third of them resubscribe to the canceled service within six months, according to Antenna’s research.
“In three years, this went from a very niche behavior to an absolute mainstream part of the market,” said Jonathan Carson, the chief executive of Antenna.
During the writer’s strike, I watched an interview with an industry insider and member of the WGA. He mentioned that it’s been well known to the industry that people are subscribing for one month to binge watch and then unsubscribe. I was a little surprised to hear this was already such a common practice and the industry was, in part, renegotiating contracts with this in mind. Personally, I’ve been doing a version of this since Netflix first started online streaming.
I don’t currently have any streaming service plans in large part because they keep increasing the prices. These services are fine for the prices they used to be but they keep raising prices. Perhaps the content is better but it’s not like my life is impacted by a slightly better tv show or movie - an hour of content is an hour of content. If you want to make better stuff, create another service or offer a higher subscription tier. I’m voting with my wallet and I’m not allowing social pressures to dictate where I get my entertainment. Let’s not lose sight that this is entertainment we’re talking about.
The other issues I have with them, incidentally, are poor content and poor user experiences. I cancelled my Netflix subscription because they implemented auto-playing trailers. I’ve stopped using Apple TV entirely because they too have implemented auto-playing trailers.
At this point, getting up to change the channel with a rotary knob might be a better experience than most of these streaming platforms. In fact, I’ve been watching a lot of Pluto and Tubi lately. They have ads but they’re relatively minimal and they’re placed in appropriate places in the program.
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Tbf, Netflix did start auto-playing crap but then walked back on that. They do that continually - pushing the boundaries past what people are willing to take, then a few months later dialing it WAY down, but still forward from where it started. Although more recently they did get it to a nice place imho - if you have a friend with a subscription, check it out and you may be pleasantly surprised. I am not saying that it makes up for the loss of content that they used to have, or that it is a fully good experience, but it is a LOT better than it was there for awhile (so: not that you would consider ever going back, but at least you would know:-).
I had a boss like that. What a fucking dickhead.
Had.
Netflix has consistently been right on the line between barely acceptable vs. just not. Unfortunately, it’s hands-down the best (legal) streaming service available. Extremely unfortunately for us all:-(.