At the beginning of the streaming boom in the 2010s, early services such as Netflix and Hulu were often compared to cable television as the cheaper and “more convenient” option.
At the time, this was true.
When they first launched, an ad-free subscription for both Netflix and Hulu each cost a mere $7.99 per month. Comparing that to the average price of a cable package, over $50 at the time, the choice seemed obvious. The ability to stream whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, all without ads at a lower price than cable seemed almost too good to be true.
Today, it turns out that may have been the case. Today a monthly subscription for Netflix will run you $17.99 for the same ad-free experience. They offer the same $7.99 subscription, at the cost of an absolute bombardment of ads. Hulu suffered a similar fate, costing an exuberant $18.99 a month for ad-free viewing.
Adding up the costs of the top five subscription services in the United States (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Max and Hulu), the price comes out to a whopping $86.95. Compared to the average price of a cable package today — around $70 per month — the lines between cable and streaming have been blurred and the choice seems less obvious.
I believe these price raises are unfortunate to see and make it difficult and expensive to see new and popular shows. This made me wonder, how do fellow poor college students feel about these drastic spikes in pricing in the streaming industry?
I spoke with DePaul film student Everett Durand about the topic.
“I’m very unhappy about the raising of prices for streaming services. As a student, it’s hard having to pay for all these streaming services, and now they’re raising the prices,” Durand said. “I just feel like they’re charging more for less.”
What happened to the goal of affordability and convenience that was promised at the genesis of the streaming revolution? As it turns out, as prices of subscriptions go up astronomically, so do the budgets of the shows we see on these services.
According to Netflix CEO Greg Peters in a 2025 earnings call, which announced Netflix’s latest price hike, Netflix is trying to give subscribers more value.
According to Business Insider, “(Netflix looks) to continually provide more value to our members, seeking to wisely invest to increase the variety and quality of our entertainment offering.”
Part of me can see where Peters is coming from. When they started, streaming services didn’t often provide the groundbreaking original content we see today with shows such as “Stranger Things,” “The Bear” or “Squid Game.” Netflix didn’t begin offering original content until the critical darling “House of Cards” began airing.
The budgets of these shows aren’t cheap either. The most recent season of “Stranger Things” cost an immense $270 million to produce. Comparatively, the first season of “House of Cards” cost approximately $58 million to produce.
At the time of its release in 2013, “House of Cards” was the most expensive streaming original television show, and one of the most expensive television shows in general. Nowadays, most shows on Netflix and other streaming platforms cost more than double that, with the most shows we see now costing well over $100 million per season.
Additionally, the quantity of these expensive shows has gone up drastically. In 2024 alone, there were 589 brand-new original TV shows and movies released on Netflix.
I think this is just too much. With so many shows and movies coming out per year, it is nearly impossible to see everything, and incredibly difficult to deduce what’s worth watching. I spend more time scrolling through my near-infinite options than actually watching shows.
So the budgets and quantity of shows has gone up drastically since streaming’s humble beginnings and as such, so have the prices of subscriptions. To me, the high quantity of content feels like a scummy business practice.
The decision to raise these prices is definitely a controversial one and one that seems very anti-consumer. Many people, including myself, may be wondering what other catalysts were responsible for these drastic changes in prices.
Tim J. Smith, an instructor in DePaul’s department of marketing and author of multiple textbooks on pricing, says the main cause of these price changes were the Covid-19 lockdowns.
“When Covid came, (studios) could no longer make the same kind of revenue from box office sales,” Smith said. “They began in the 20s to raise prices. Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.”
As a response to the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns, movie theaters across the world were forced to close their doors, delaying the releases of many films. As a result, many film production studios resorted to at-home mediums of content releases. This created a somewhat new business model for the film and television industry, causing silver screen-caliber content to be on streaming services, at the cost of the consumer.
As a film major, being able to see all the new shows and films that come out on these services is important for my future profession and social life. Being locked out of seeing these new releases behind exorbitant paywalls leaves me feeling left out, a feeling I wouldn’t have if the subscriptions were more affordable.
I guess I’ll just continue to sign up for free trials on burner emails.
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