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YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

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Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#41

Post by nodesocket »

When I first signed up it was great value at $35/mo. It’s dramatically been increasing since adding little value. I literally just want CNBC, ESPN, ESPN2, CNN, FOX NEWS, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, TBS, and TNT. I have gotten zero value from my nearly doubling of monthly price.

  Original signup June 2017 - $35/mo
  Price increase June 2019 - $49.99/mo
  Price increase August 2020 - $64.99/mo

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#42

Post by crazygringo »

keithwinstein wrote: post #12

ObShameless reminder that https://puffer.stanford.edu remains free of charge. The site streams San Francisco affiliates and local stations of NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS/FOX/CW as part of a university study on video streaming algorithms -- it's essentially a big A/B test to try to reproduce or clarify some of the findings in the research literature. We're now posting all our data and analysis each day. Research talk here: https:…

I'm no lawyer, but it doesn't exactly seem legal. Streaming free local network broadcasts was definitively ruled as illegal by the Supreme Court in 2014 -- remember that was Aereo's entire business model. [1]

It seems like the Stanford service is trying to justify themselves by being an academic study and limiting to 500 concurrent participants... but it's telling they don't list any legal justification on the site, and merely generically claim:

> Stanford respects the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe your copyright has been violated on a Stanford site, please notify puffer-copyright-notices@cs.stanford.edu and give notice as stated under Reporting of Alleged Copyright Infringement. [2]

I'm honestly shocked this ever passed Stanford legal review. Maybe it never did?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo

[2] https://puffer.stanford.edu/terms/

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#43

Post by chrisjc »

uptown wrote: post #23

What's more interesting to me is that Google only has ~2M YouTube TV subscribers. Perhaps there's newer metrics now. https://twitter.com/RichLightShed/status/1224454820309811202 That's nothing, and in my mind - doesn't bode well for the long-term prospects of the service. I've been a subscriber for about a year, but with the price increases, and the interface on AppleTV that seemingly wants to always show me Tennis w…

> doesn't bode well for the long-term prospects of the service.

Although i understand the strings that viacomm is pulling, I wonder if this is google's way of trying to shed users in preparation for service retirement.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#44

Post by mcgrath_sh »

KWD wrote: post #11

I was already on the fence at $50, as I don't watch many of the channels. Primary use was for local, and just a couple of other channels. I'll keep it for July, and then use that time to get an attic antenna setup, and then look at an antenna + Sling option, or some other setup. Overall, they need to split into multiple offerings so they can still present some value options. I don't watch sports, so that was already…

Definitely get an antenna for local OTA channels. Cheap and great picture quality. Does not even need to be a complicated antenna. We have some plastic square thing draped around a clock on a wall and it works perfectly. We only have one TV hooked up to the cable box in our house because antenna + streaming covers 99% of our TV needs. If I could stream the in-market NHL team, I’d ditch cable.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#45

Post by chrsstrm »

For any YouTube TV PMs reading, I just added an event to my calendar marking the day I'll cancel my account. Thanks for the helpful reference to the exact date my current rate expires. Spectrum is offering more channels for $45/month and you don't even need a cable box if you're using an Apple TV. YouTube TV is an OK service that is very rough around the edges and I won't miss it a single minute after I cancel.

"This new price reflects the rising costs of content, and we also believe it reflects the complete value of YouTube TV"

Your price does not reflect the complete value of your service, but happy churning.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#46

Post by Paul-ish »

crazygringo wrote: post #42
keithwinstein wrote: post #12

ObShameless reminder that https://puffer.stanford.edu remains free of charge. The site streams San Francisco affiliates and local stations of NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS/FOX/CW as part of a university study on video streaming algorithms -- it's essentially a big A/B test to try to reproduce or clarify some of the findings in the research literature. We're now posting all our data and analysis each day. Research talk here: https:…

I'm no lawyer, but it doesn't exactly seem legal. Streaming free local network broadcasts was definitively ruled as illegal by the Supreme Court in 2014 -- remember that was Aereo's entire business model. [1] It seems like the Stanford service is trying to justify themselves by being an academic study and limiting to 500 concurrent participants... but it's telling they don't list any legal justification on the site,…

Couldn't they ask the librarian of Congress for an exemption?

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#47

Post by tclancy »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #4

If they keep increasing the price every time they add more channels pretty soon it’ll end up being the same as the old cable subscriptions. What happened to a-la-carte channels?

It’s disappointing. I’m guessing the problem is they are one of the few players with any financial muscle so the status quo is going all out to make them look bad.

None of which explains how I went from grandfathered in at $35 to this is a year or so.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#49

Post by eslaught »

draz wrote: post #30
lowmemcpu wrote: post #17

That cost is nearly double it's original price 3y ago, and looking at the recent channel additions -- I'm not sure the users will be convinced it's worth the extra cost. I wish someone would have a selection like: $5 - one channel $7 - two channels $10 - five channels $20 - fifteen channels (you pick) $50 - 40 channels (we pick) $50 + $15 - 40 channels (the $50 package), plus

YouTube is not the content producer, rather strikes deals with content producers. The reality is there is consolidation in the media world, with a few mega corporations managing most channels. They typically bundle a few channels together for vMVPDs/MVPDs, for leverage - “you want channel X, you must also get channel Y.” Source: I head a Product organization at a mega media org.

Honest question: why do big organizations do this?

I mean, I get it: you're making people pay for stuff they don't need. You can charge a higher price despite users not actually watching everything they buy. Clearly, this tactic must work at some level, or else they wouldn't do it.

On the other hand, there are users like me who take one look at that and say, "ew", and walk away from TV completely. And it's not like I'm unwilling to pay for content, I just want to get what I want when I want it and not pay for the privilege of wandering through this ridiculous maze of content that no one cares about.

Maybe I'm being naive, but it just seems to me like this is a strategy that's going to kill the cash cow on the long run. Am I wrong?

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#50

Post by tpmx »

Sort of related:

I've noticed that regular Youtube has been cranking up the ads quite a lot lately.

I view most of my youtube on the TV, via their crappy HTML-based Apple TV app. So many ads to suffer through, suddenly.

On the desktop, it seems like they've suddenly started work against that one chrome extension I've loved the most: The one that blocks the ads from youtube.

I can't see myself subscring to youtube red or whatever they call it. Just not going to happen.

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