alt Hacker NewsThe title kind of buries important details about the distribution of these costs and their changes.
For example, Apple TV+ went from $4.99 per month to $14.99 per month, a +200% change, while YouTube Premium went from $11.99 to $15.99, a +33% change.
So services like Apple TV+ are skewing this increase a lot while services like YouTube Premium have remained relatively low. Similarly, Apple TV+ starting at $4.99 per month was clearly a very low price to start (which can probably be mostly attributed to the service's lack of content at that point). It's now at a "normal" price.
Just the same, saying something like something "costs $702/year more" without a point of reference is bad data presentation. The 2021 cost for all of these services was $1,150.92, for a +61% change. I'm not saying that's not substantial, but this kind of information is necessary for these figures to not just be rage bait.
And, of course, if you're simultaneously paying for Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+, Peacock, YouTube Premium, and Spotify every month, then you're either (a) really into consuming this kind of content and are a "premium subscriber" in the sense that these costs ought to be justified or (b) very bad with managing your time and finances. I suspect normal users subscribe to one or two of these at a time and are probably willing to switch around as prices change, content gets released/pulled, etc. A better analysis would try to do some investigation into this dynamic, since it will probably reveal that people are able to navigate dynamic service subscriptions well enough that they aren't actually experiencing a straight-up +61% increase in costs since 2021.
All of this is to say that this "analysis" barely even qualifies as a valid first-pass at understanding this kind of data. It's literally something that Claude probably churned out in 20 minutes. Everyone can be dissatisfied with the value they get from these streaming services, but this kind of post only helps to muddy the conversation.
Replies
The title means exactly what it says and the expanded details are nearly as close to the top of the article and as clearly presented as possible. Why does every article on HN need to find some excuse to make a complaint about the title?
> All of this is to say that this "analysis" barely even qualifies as a valid first-pass at understanding this kind of data.
Another example: Disney+ and Hulu are available bundled together for $19.99 a month, something the site's own sources state:
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/23/disney-plus-price-incre...
But because it's just looking at the data in the most literal way possible it doesn't factor that in and instead says buying Disney+ and Hulu Premium would be $18.99 each.
Or c) family bundled consumption. Mom likes netflix, dad needs live tv, kids are into youtube, and everyone likes hbo.
Its hard to cancel a subscription when you know it brings joy to an infirmed parent. Youre effectively locked into paying whatever, like $350/mo for xfinity tv simply because thats the only UI they can handle on an old remote.
I think the point is that we are no longer in the world of Netflix in 2015, where all shows are available.
Even if you watch « only » 5 shows, if they are on five different services then that means 5 subscriptions.
Or you spend time planning and organizing subscriptions.
.. or you just download them.
Same happened to Disney Plus. The newer players skewed it a lot
Apple TV and YT Premium are also bundled with other Apple/Google products and the marginal cost maybe be nothing or deeply discounted.
There’s also c) you just aren’t price sensitive to the changes and find it overall rather immaterial d) can recall how expensive and crappy cable/satellite tv was, still see this as a good deal e) have many people in your household with different media preferences and cost per capita is pretty low
Also you should consider the base period timing is when many of the big movers were in a rollout of their application and thus the price was either artificially low and/or represented a severely limited offering compared to their current offering.