Many more people are jumping from one streaming subscription to another, a behavior that could have big implications for the entertainment industry.

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.

Non-paywall link

  • dumples
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    338 months ago

    Exactly. I want to watch 1 show and when I’m done I’m cancelling. I’m looking at your paramount plus.

    • Flying Squid
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      238 months ago

      Paramount+ is especially bad. Tiny selection, mostly shit, costs as much as the other services.

      • @ChicoSuave
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        188 months ago

        Paramount+ ate the children’s entertainment app Noggin, which was primarily a streaming media and games app for the Nickelodeon crowd. It was commercial free, highly curated, and generally an exciting thing for the kids to open up and use to discover stuff like STEM games that were actually fun. Enshittification merged Noggin into Paramount, removed the recommendation algorithm geared towards kids, and shut down the Noggin app. Now Paramount is the only option and it’s horrible.

      • dumples
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        78 months ago

        My wife wanted to watch the Grammys and when we saw it was on Paramount Plus we got it for 1 day. Afterwards I bought a 25 dollar over the air antennae so we can watch live CBS on the local affiliate for the once per year when we want to watch live TV. Isn’t worth it pretty much ever

      • ares35
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        68 months ago

        they thought star trek would carry it… when that didn’t work, they shopped some of those titles around to play elsewhere and don’t even have their entire flagship franchise available anymore.

        • Flying Squid
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          28 months ago

          And the only new Star Trek show in the pipeline? A YA Starfleet Academy show starring Commandant Tilly.

    • Echo Dot
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      128 months ago

      What you mean the Star Trek streaming service with some extra stuff no on cares about?

      • dumples
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        38 months ago

        Originally we went to get to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race but it doesn’t have the current season even though its the main attraction. Then when I saw that some Star Trek wasn’t on it we canceled within a week.

        • @[email protected]
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          8 months ago

          Are you outside the US? I thought Netflix got all the Trek series everywhere outside of the US, but this was back when Discovery was first coming out so my info may be out of date. I just download the stuff to avoid jumping through these hoops and avoid ads.

      • @RizzRustbolt
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        18 months ago

        It’s the Yellowstone Cinematic Universe Channel. And it’s only a matter of time before they force the Star Trek shows to bridge the gap.