Cable is the worst. I shouldn't have to pay for channels I don't want. It should be à la carte.
Streaming services are the worst. I shouldn't have to subscribe to a half dozen different services. Someone should sell a bundle that gives me access to all of them for a lower price.
Yeah, I've always thought it was weird that people say they wanted "a la carte" but that's been available for years through iTunes and Amazon Video. You can buy individual episodes of practically any show. That's a la carte. Getting a channel isn't a la carte, unless you want every program that channel produces (unlikely).
But a la carte hasn't taken off in streaming services, so now we're recreating channels. Next will be bundles where you can get Netflix and Hulu and Amazon together. Blah.
Unpopular, but without cable subsidizing costs of various networks through packages, we wouldn't have tons of cable channels that grew up to be great, like AMC and FX. The one exception to this is the ESPN subsidy, which is insane. If ESPN could actually be opted out of cable bills would be fairly cheap.
Disagree. The big players are leeching money that COULD go to small players if we got to choose where our money went. And then the cable companies throw you a few 'small' channels so you feel like the little guy wins occasionally.
Instead we have all those channels in a perpetual race to the bottom to attract just enough eyeballs to be worth "keeping on the payroll" of the bundle.
The racing footage I used to be able to get on Speedvision (on the rare occasion where my local provider HAD Speedvision!) was worth far more to me than the $0.20 they got from my subscription.
I for one, welcome our a-la-carte overlords, where my dollars go to the content I want.
I don't think it is so clear that putting your dollars where you want gets you more topical programming than putting up with opaque bundles.
(Say there's $30 on average of revenue in the cable bundle with only $15 of it being desired spending on average. The channels get a lot more revenue with the opaque bundles, and they are still competing to some extent for the revenue.)
Their price is a reflection of how much people want it. ESPN (and sports as a whole) are a big driver of cable subscriptions, which helps all cable channels.
Sling[1] is the closest we can get right now. Eventually, channel subscriptions will be available through something like an App Store and just as easy to manage as an recurring subscription app.
How is netflix any different. I don't care about Disney movies or all teh kids content they have. Should I get an a la carte netflix plan with only the content I want? Of course not.
Streaming services are the worst. I shouldn't have to subscribe to a half dozen different services. Someone should sell a bundle that gives me access to all of them for a lower price.