If you were hoping for a respite from rising streaming subscription fees in 2025, you’re out of luck. Several streaming providers have already increased monthly and/or annual subscription rates, continuing a disappointing trend from the past few years, with no foreseeable end.

Subscribers have generally seen an uptick in how much money they spend to access streaming services. In June, Forbes reported that 44 percent of the 2,000 US streaming users it surveyed who “engage with content for at least an hour daily” said their streaming costs had increased over the prior year.

Deloitte’s 2024 Digital Media Trends report found that 48 percent of the 3,517 US consumers it surveyed said that they would cancel their favorite streaming video-on-demand service if the price went up by $5.

Similarly, in a blog post about 2025 streaming trends, consumer research firm GWI reported that 52 percent of US TV viewers believe streaming subscriptions are getting too expensive, “which is a 77 percent increase since 2020.” A GWI spkesperon told me that the data comes from GWI’s flagship dataset and surveying people from over 50 global markets. Its methodology is available here.) GWI added that globally, the top reason cited by customers who have canceled or are considering canceling a streaming service was cost (named by 39 percent of consumers), followed by price hikes (32 percent).

“Pay TV packages and inflation have increased at similar rates in recent years. But over the past two years, streaming has gotten much more expensive relative to both,” eMarketer’s report says.

  • yeehaw
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    171 day ago

    I’m down to 1, I don’t count Amazon because it has ads and I only pay for prime for shipping, but the quality of stuff from Amazon lately I might even cancel that.

    • partial_accumen
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      421 day ago

      but the quality of stuff from Amazon lately I might even cancel that.

      Do it. You can still get free shipping on orders over $35 which further acts as a disincentive to buying things. Our household canceled Prime when the ads came. It was rocky at first just because we were so used to being able to order and get something quick. However, the shipping times kept increasing (no where close to 2-day) and the cost of Prime kept going up. Ads was the last straw and we dropped it.

      Look at the cost you’re paying for Prime and consider how many orders you’d have to place to break even (using the Prime membership money just to pay for shipping when you need it faster, etc).

      • @[email protected]
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        91 day ago

        Look at the cost you’re paying for Prime and consider how many orders you’d have to place to break even (using the Prime membership money just to pay for shipping when you need it faster, etc).

        I exceed the hell out of that in probably a couple weeks for my business. I hate it, but I’m pinched to keep costs down and time is valuable, and unfortunately Amazon fills that requirement too well. I live in a small town, I don’t have time to dedicate an entire day to driving to civilization and back, plus fuel costs. Plus, Amazon gets it to my mail depot faster than I can get it from other suppliers, without having to pay shipping.