Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 161 posts

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#121

Post by nitwit005 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #13

I dislike price rises, and related I dislike paying for expensive sports licensing I don't watch. Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidizing it. That being said, as someone who helped family move off of cable in the last year, this is only inching closer to cable's headline pricing which is largely a fiction. All the big four providers of cable/satellite have the following pricing: - Advertised…

> Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidizing it.

They're also making the sports fans subsidize the non-sports content.

While it's generally illegal to charge people for nothing, businesses always try to sell things that are as close as possible to nothing: Channels you don't want, mobile phone time you won't use, etc.

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#122

Post by aix1 »

This strikes me as extraordinarily expensive. As a point of comparison, I live in one of the world's most expensive cities, and for almost exactly the same amount of money I can get a 25 Gbps fibre-to-the-premises broadband connection that comes with about 200 TV channels from half a dozen countries.

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#123

Post by x-complexity »

social_quotient wrote: post #48
adrianmonk wrote: post #6

The last price increase raised it to $64.99. That happened on June 30, 2020 ( https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-tv-update/ ). Let's put that into the BLS CPI Inflation Calculator ( https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm ). Results: "$64.99 in June 2020 has the same buying power as $75.84 in February 2023". So this doesn't quite keep up with inflation.

Why should it if technology is inherently deflationary?

> Why should it if technology is inherently deflationary?

Most of it's not paying for the tech: It's paying for the licensing fees to the TV channels. And at least one of those licenses will always ask for more money, and none of them will ever ask for less money - Not unless TV & other streaming services are fully killed off and YouTube is literally the only place that people can watch TV.

Reductively: YouTube will have to be the sole broadcasting company for the entire world before these media companies will ever bend the knee.

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#124

Post by midoridensha »

kevinventullo wrote: post #74
FormerBandmate wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN viewing videogames as more sophisticated or intellectual than TV is hilarious ngl. Reverse Boomerism

I wouldn’t call video games more sophisticated or intellectual, but they do require you to use your brain in a way that is not strictly necessary for watching TV.

They're also basically impossible to play while eating dinner, unlike watching TV. They're also generally not something you can do with your girlfriend or wife.

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#125

Post by benhurmarcel »

atyppo wrote: post #35
bombcar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incredibly stupid naming. I saw these prices and just entirely gave up even thinking about premium until I saw the note (and then I still gave up on it, anyway).

If you use an Argentina VPN, it's ~$2/month

I'm too afraid of getting my whole Google account banned to try that

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#126

Post by dahdum »

funstuff007 wrote: post #84
Someone1234 wrote: post #13

I dislike price rises, and related I dislike paying for expensive sports licensing I don't watch. Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidizing it. That being said, as someone who helped family move off of cable in the last year, this is only inching closer to cable's headline pricing which is largely a fiction. All the big four providers of cable/satellite have the following pricing: - Advertised…

Really? I've always felt it was the ESPN viewer subsidizing the rest of the cable universe. ESPN is basically the only premium service you can't go over the top on. However, Iger says he's considering it.

ESPN is the most expensive channel by far and has been forced bundling for decades. They sued Verizon for offering basic packages without ESPN a while back, and have been rightfully terrified of consumer choice. Almost every cable subscriber was forced to pay the ESPN tax.

Paying $100+/yr for a channel I’ve never watched or cared about is a big reason why I cut the cord. They certainly aren’t “subsidizing” anything.

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#127

Post by scarface74 »

grecy wrote: post #79
Someone1234 wrote: post #13

I dislike price rises, and related I dislike paying for expensive sports licensing I don't watch. Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidizing it. That being said, as someone who helped family move off of cable in the last year, this is only inching closer to cable's headline pricing which is largely a fiction. All the big four providers of cable/satellite have the following pricing: - Advertised…

> They're just unavoidable parts of the service's price that the cable/satellite vendors split off to misrepresent the costs. I worked for a Telco (that also did Cable TV). The marketing team would literally sit around a conference table and discuss how they were going to raise quarterly revenue by $amount so they would get their bonuses. Someone would suggest a connection fee. Or a disconnection fee. Or a change ser…

Why do you think it’s unique to cable that a for profit company wants to increase its profit?

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#128

Post by scarface74 »

pdntspa wrote: post #40

This isn't entirely relevant, but I just want to say I am sick of our society's obsessive fascination with TV. It's solitary, sedentary, and passive. And then we bitch and complain when the people cracking this whip make it more obnoxious, more expensive, and even less entertaining. Every show feels the same. The actors seem interchangeable. There's such a limited subset of permitted stories and things that can be sa…

Yes because no one on HN has a significant other that they spend time with watching TV.

Or do you think after 12 years my wife and I should spend all of our time together looking lovingly into each others eyes talking about our relationship?

So instead “playing video games” is much more stimulating? You realize the previous generation also said video games were ruining children?

It’s also funny that your alternative was “playing video games” and not going outside for run, riding a bike, etc - anything that requires physical exertion or actually being around a group of other people.

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#129

Post by scarface74 »

pdntspa wrote: post #85
wutbrodo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, I don't have any illusions about medium fully defining the quality of content: eg reading 50 Shades of Grey isn't more rewarding or meaningful than watching The Wire. But apples-to-apples, watching video is the only common activity that feels maximally passive. I guess with the exception of listening to music? Not sure how this fits in

Music consumption itself is passive, but we frequently use it as a backdrop to do other things. Or we dance to it. I would like to think that the curation of playlists or mp3 libraries is considerably more involved than doing so with videos, on account of how limited in scope most songs/tracks are compared to video.

I’m sure if you drew a Venn diagram of “people who post to HN” and “people who dance”, the overlap wouldn’t be that large.

Re: YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

#130

Post by scarface74 »

abudabi123 wrote: post #101
minsc_and_boo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's solitary, sedentary, and passive. People probably said the same about reading at several points in history. It's about how you use the technology, not the technology itself.

Reading a language you are in the process of learning is a form of puzzle assembly and takes the mind to places it would not have other wise.

And many of my coworkers whose second language is English said that they learned English by watching TV.
Post reply on HN