Will Streaming Services Learn to Coexist in a Large Market, Or Will the Market Fold? [OPINION]

Streaming once seemed like a cheaper alternative to cable and satellite TV, but as of today if you total up the monthly subscriptions it tallies up to about the same amount as cable/satellite.

Disney+ launched last Tuesday and sparked the debate online as to whether or not streaming was the more affordable alternative to cable and satellite. Once upon a time Netflix was the hottest, realistically only, streaming service on the block. Everyone’s favorite shows and movies are on Netflix. Around the same time streaming started getting hot, Hulu was becoming a juggernaut itself. As certain shows aired episodes on TV, they would be added to Hulu moments after it was aired.

Fast forward a few years, to today, and consumers also have Apple TV, CBS All Access, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and soon too come in 2020, HBO Max and Peacock. So much for cord cutting, huh?

The feeling seems to be a bit mixed online, with users arguing how they love the new addition of Disney+, while others bring the attention of the full price if one subscribes to all the streaming services to keep up with content.
Where content was once dominated by Netflix and Hulu, these sites have had to rely heavily on originals recently to keep viewers on their site. Many companies such as NBC, CBS, and Disney have been pulling a lot of their content from other streaming services for their own streaming services. For example, The Office, will be leaving Netflix in 2021 for NBC’s Peacock and many of Disney’s movies currently on Netflix will also be getting pulled for Disney+.

This content pulling has left content being scattered all over different streaming services, rather than finding them in one or two places. It almost. Kind of. Resembles. Television. Paying the same amount of money one pays for different cable channels, except this time it’s for different streaming services.

Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ seem to have an answer to this oversaturation of the streaming market. This answer is actually quite smart and could actually save people money versus subscribing to all these services. These services have come together and bundled up for the price of $12.99 a month! That’s equivalent to Netflix’s standard tier of streaming.

Is this the future of streaming though? I think so. Netflix alone cost the same as the Disney+ bundle. With so many services, the smart thing to do is bundle up and price it at the same price of one service. Customers love so much of the content that’s on many of these services and it sucks that the whole point of cord cutting was to be able to have so much content in one or two places, and now they may have to drop just as much money on subscriptions to keep up with their favorite shows and originals.

While it may not necessarily be a streaming war, bundles will help many streaming services. Many will argue that people realistically won’t subscribe to all the services at once and while that may be true, that does not mean they won’t feel like they’re missing out. Bundling may be their incentive to try out new services. It not only benefits the consumer, but the companies themselves as they may not be seeing the numbers they want, bundling their service with others will be easier to getting more eyes on them.

Speaking for myself, I do love the idea of bundles. I’ve enjoyed all the content Disney+ has to offer, plus the content on Hulu, while it may be the ad supported version, but hey beggars can’t be choosers, and the live sports I can watch on ESPN+. For the same price, I’d be willing drop more money on a Netflix, HBO Max and Apple TV bundle, hypothetically speaking.

The streaming market seems uncertain right now, but it will be interesting to see where the landscape is in a few years. Did bundle packages not work? Who survived the market? Did the market collapse as a whole due to the abundant amount of services? Is TV back to reigning supreme? Time will tell all.