Consumers, despite their ultra-foul mood, are not pushing back with waves of cancellations that would keep a lid on streamflation.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Inflation is in services, which is where consumers do two-thirds of their spending. These services include streaming, which may only be a small slice of a household’s monthly expenditures, compared to housing costs, healthcare, insurance, and other services. But inflation has raged in streaming as companies have jacked up their rates year after year by large percentages, and in 2025, they went all out, including +30% for Apple TV and +37% for Peacock Premium.
And consumers – who, according to all these consumer surveys, are in an ultra-foul mood and think the economy stinks to high heaven or whatever – are still buying the subscriptions despite these mega-price increases, and they’re paying the higher prices, instead of cancelling their subscriptions, and so the beating will continue until the mood improves?
Obviously, the only thing that could put a lid on those price increases would be a massive wave of cancellations that would push the companies to roll back those price increases. Companies can see the cancellations in real time after they announce the price hikes, and there are some cancellations due to price hikes, but the massive waves needed to push companies to roll back those price hikes just aren’t happening yet.
That this inflationary mindset among consumers persists and allows for inflation to continue to burn at red-hot rates in streaming services is a bad sign for overall inflation in services.
There were also some cancellations for various political or social reasons over the years, but those were unrelated to price hikes and didn’t trigger price rollbacks.
And then there is the flow of new subscribers, as households who hadn’t subscribed, start a subscription, and as households add more subscriptions.
Paramount announced price increases for Paramount+ on November 11, effective January 15, monthly:
- Essential (with ads): +12.5% to $8.99 (from $7.99)
- Premium (no ads): +7.7% to $13.99 (from $12.99).
Disney+ jacked up prices effective October 28, monthly:
- Basic with ads: +20.0% to $11.99 (from $9.99)
- Premium (no ads): +18.8% to $18.99 (from 15.99).
HBO Max hiked its prices in October, monthly:
- Basic with ads: +9.1% to $10.99 (from $9.99)
- Standard no ads: +8.8% to $18.49 (from 416.99)
- Premium: +9.5% to $22.99 (from $20.99)
Hulu also jacked up prices in October. It sells are large variety of bundles. Standalone Hulu with ads: +18.2% to $11.99 (from $9.99), monthly.
Apple TV announced price increases in August: +30%, to $12.99 (from $9.99), monthly.
Peacock jacked up its prices in July, monthly:
- Premium: +37.5% to $10.99
- Premium Plus: +21.4% to $16.99 (from $13.99).
Netflix raised its prices in January 2025, monthly:
- Standard with ads: +14.3% to $7.99 (from $6.99)
- Standard (no ads): +16.1% to $17.99 (from 15.49)
- Premium: +8.7% to $24.99 (from $22.99)
There are discounts available when subscribers pay for a year’s worth of subscription all at once up front. And subscribers can get discounts via joint promos with other companies, such as AmEx, which offers streaming credits on some of its cards.
There are also bundles of different streaming services available whose price, as hefty as it may be, is cheaper than the combined price of each individual service, harkening back to the bad old days of cable TV bundles.
And consumers can downgrade from an ad-free service to an ad-supported service and save some money or add more subscriptions without driving up the total too far.
Companies have spent billions of dollars buying sports programming, and they have shuffled programming around, and some have stripped some programming from basic streaming services. So prices alone may not reflect the whole picture.
Since 2019, subscriptions have soared, according to the WSJ:
- Disney+ +172%
- Apple TV +160%
- Peacock +120%
- Hulu +58%
- Paramount+ +40%
- Netflix +38%
- HBO Max +23%
Yet, despite the price increases, households keep adding streaming services: The number of streaming services subscribed to by households that have streaming rose to a record 4.5 services per household on average in 2025, up from 4.2 per household in 2022, and up 1.6 in 2015, according to the WSJ.
And households keep spending more on streaming: Average subscription revenue per household that subscribes to streaming rose by about 37% in three years to $38 in 2025 (from $30 in 2022), and by 280% since 2015.
Which tells us something about our always astonishing “Drunken Sailors,” as we’ve lovingly and facetiously come to call them: Whatever foul mood they may be in, according to consumer sentiment surveys, they just keep spending more, even on discretionary services, such as streaming, and even when prices get jacked up by the double-digit percentages.
In case you missed it:
Food Inflation: The Price Spikes of Beef, Coffee, Eggs, and Dairy
Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the mug to find out how:
This is why I pirate everything.
Canceled these long time ago
Disney+ +172%
Apple TV +160%
Peacock +120%
Hulu +58%
Good bye
As a shareholder, subscription model was the best Silicon Valley “invention” (I know they didn’t invent it, but there was a day when you actually just bought perpetual licenses for digital products).
As a consumer I’m growing tired.
As a manufacturing worker that provides essential items (petroleum energy), I’m a bit exhausted by constant media attention any time prices come up modestly. Real prices are basically flat for decades. Yet we’re gouging consumers when there is a supply imbalance. Sure seems like the ones gouging sit somewhere in the south bay.
If people want lower carbon solutions, I think I can point to exactly where the extra $20-40/mo that would need to come from….
Note to the entity know as Wolf – Inflation is raging in just about everything…It’s OK if you’re late to the party – I can show you around.
BTW – what are streaming services? My mashed potatoes are more expensive, but still yummy.
Mashed potatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I’ve never tried eating Streaming Services.
You have obviously read absolutely zero articles here about inflation — not even this article, not even the first paragraph of this article — or else you would not have made this comment. So read the inflation articles here to get an education:
https://wolfstreet.com/category/all/inflation-devaluation/
One of the themes in this article and my other articles on inflation is that inflation has been and continues to be in services, and this was another example of inflation in services.
“Inflation is raging in just about everything”
Ignorant BS. Since their peaks in 2022, price of gasoline has collapsed, used vehicle prices have plunged, new vehicle prices have eased, prices of consumer electronics have plunged, etc.
This might be the dumbest shit I have seen on this site. Ignorant bs
Be thankful you don’t see the shit Wolf deletes (from people like me, et al)!
Redundant,
I delete your stuff when it’s a result of digging through the internet until you find something you don’t understand and then spin a grand theory out of it, on the foundation of what you don’t understand, which is what you do, and have been doing for years. And more recently, I have to deal with AI-generated stuff on this site, and much of the time I delete it, hallucination or not. This is the reason why I have encouraged you over the years to start your own blog so you can post whatever. And you have done so and have your own Substack, and that’s where this stuff belongs — not here. Your comments when you actually stay away from AI and internet search generally pass.
I get language practice from the phenomenal amount of dubbing Netflix does, worth every penny. I would pay even more. The *motivated* professionals and youth of other countries are developing fantastic English skills this way.
PlutoTV – free
Tubi – free
Plex – free
Roku – free
No streamflation hitting me!
Same here, and there are many other lesser known free channels you didn’t mention (e.g. Kanopy, Fawesome, RetroMovie, etc.) with hundreds of additional top-tier movies that do not overlap the ones you have mentioned. The only thing my household “buys” at this point is Prime, which has benefits outside of streaming.
I’m right with you! I cut cable 2 yrs ago, tried YoutubeTV then cut it when they continued to rise rates for BS programming(when I said “goodbye” to youtube they offered to rollback price for 6 months LOL. So now I just pay for fiber connection which is provided by my city (!). Thing I love is because such a small place 22k population, I get a human on the phone for anything related to connection. Plus, i leave for an extended vacation, I turn off service, no charges! Easy. I have a feeling that the remaining cable/phone/voice big corps are kinda like heading for extinction. Oh and throw in the steaming services,their content is bread and circus.
Not quite the same but similar – I had Amazon Prime a few years ago. When they changed the Amazon Music and moved it to a paid streaming type thing, even though I had already prepaid for the year, I didn’t cancel right away. I simply didn’t renew it. I’m not paying for Bezo’s yacht fuel for 15-seconds if he’s gonna be dirty about it.
Cable tv prices went up even more during this time frame. Once you’re committed to cord cutting, you can switch services without the hassles of contract terms or being without services. Additionally, you don’t pay FCC and local license franchise fee, forced to buy packages you don’t use, equipment rental, and whatever else the cable operator wants to stick to you. We’re currently on Hulu Live+ with no ads and saving over $100 vs Cox Cable who raised prices several times in less than a year despite no contract period expiration. Even with a contract, they manage to raise their prices.
Verizon is now the worst offender in the voice world. Every few months a $5 charge added. I call and ask why. 1st, can’t speak to human, stuck in endless phonetree, if I can get to human its from an call center where everyone speaks from prepared text. One human “person” told me the added charge was for 5G system, I told them they don’t offer 5G coverage in my out of the way location, then they said it was inflation. Its all a farce.
Now that cable and satellite are going the wayside, the cost of TV entertainment deflated tremendously. So, it’s not surprising people subscribe to three or four providers. The wise folks choose one, watch everything, and then move on to another.
Entertainment is an inferior good and excellent for coping with the enshitification of everything else. I’ve cancelled most services due to the price hikes and substitution with better content. Most people won’t.
I’m saying the inflation here is also a barometer of how bad everything else is and will probably persist if other inflation slows down. Job losses, anyone?
So companies are raising prices on something that can be cancelled with like 3 clicks, consumers are still paying it, and your answer is “they are doing it because everything sucks”
Okay lol
a bunch came “free” with my spectrum package but that cable price went up. I’d rather cheaper cable bill and no apps
Cancel my subscription to the e-ressurection. Send my credentials to the e-house of detention. When the movie’s over, you still own the disk, still own the disk, still own the disk.
Cause the movie is your special friend…
Canceling services is fairly easy. Canceling them in a household with multiple viewers and a variety of preferences is, unfortunately, more difficult.
But this getting ridiculous. Thanks!
Streaming price increases seem bad when viewed in isolation, but compare to what people used to pay for cable. I used to pay $180/month for 200 channels of ad-filled garbage. Now if 5 streaming services cost less than $100/month with better content and no ads, not a bad exchange in my book. And because series seasons are 1 or even 2 years apart, I can cancel services while waiting for new seasons. Last month I cancelled Apple, and will re-up for new seasons of 4 series I care about.
That said, I fear the era of consumer technology getting continuously cheaper is over, or at least on pause for the foreseeable future.
I cannot even watch Apple TV. Their production value and acting is just weird.
No offense but I think it’s because they pretend Canada is the US.
You’re filming in Canada, look I can tell. Stop trying to trick me into thinking it’s the US. If it was the US in the 50’s.
At least LowDown had the decency to film in Oklahoma, yeah it looks painful but you can tell it’s not friggin Canada. (Which I’m sure is beautiful in its own way…I’d come here too though… lol)
I get why people are still paying for the streaming services. Still much cheaper than going to a movie. And it matches a lifestyle which has become even more sedentary.
Also there’s the fear of missing out and the ability to actually discuss the latest shows at work, for appearances.
I think streaming services can probably jack up the prices even further before people start to quit
Predator Badlands made $90 million in its opening weekend I think.
That’s like nine million people spent $10 to go see a hunty monster thing with half of Elle fanning strapped to its hunty monster back.
There’s the problem, right there.
Hoopla and Kanopy are also free, I use both with my library card.
Morningstar the investment review service is also free thru some libraries.
$249 value , a year.
Anyone remember when cable first came out.
The selling point was…..pay for the service and there will be no ads.
That didnt last long. Now saturated with ads
Currently i am streaming star trek Picard, i bought a year of paramount on sale. Smart money is active and showing their intent the last 15 minutes of each trading day. in the last 9 out of 11 trading days they have sold that last 15 minutes with good volume in the SP 500. Dow 30 ripped 2000 points in 4 days to new highs, the AI bubble looks fractured to my eyes no official confirmation yet. buy the rumor sell the news event with the official end of the govt shutdown with the house. Where is the liquidity after the liquidity suck up?
It’s easy — and valid — to bitch about this, but in the context of entertainment, it’s still the cheapest option. What would it cost to take a family of 4 to the movies? $100 + $50 on popcorn and soda? You could sign up for almost all of the streaming services and break even. Which is why no one goes to the movies anymore.
When was the last time you went to a concert? Or a play? I was an avid concert goer in my younger days. Today, I’m not laying out $200 for a ticket to contribute to some aging has-been’s retirement fund. I’ll stay home and watch the video.
Perhaps it will hit a wall at some point and subscribers will start to pull back, but as Wolf points out, the increases will continue until that does.
Brad,I agree concerts have become pretty damn expensive,been going since a kid of 12 in 1975 and have literally thru the decades seen over 500 shows,not so much these days.
I recently saw Tesla(the band,not the cyber dumpster) and 45 bucks for great seats,me beer and other items a bit more.
I recently paid 150 a seat and saw ZZ Top(great show!),that said,was 3rd row dead center and worth it to me.
I can see families on a tight budget cannot afford these prices and others that are much higher for many shows/sporting events ect.
That said,as I stream for free everything others pay for(thank you!)can stretch budget for a few shows.
This is part of my series about inflation in specific product categories. Not “bitching.”
Wolf, regarding inflation. I’ve seen a lot of sudden talk yesterday and today about the reverse repo program and how the Fed is basically going to restart QE and the markets will go through the roof. Do you think this will also cause inflation to surge or will it just push up hard assets? Or is it just the bologna sandwich?
People who say the Fed will restart QE soon are effing liars. Eventually the Fed will let the balance sheet grow with the size of the economy, as it ALWAYS DID before QE. Letting the balance sheet grow with the size of the economy is NOT QE. Those effing idiots out there that promote this BS and the morons that spread it are trying to manipulate the markets. But anyone above the janitor at Wall Street firms knows exactly what that means when the Fed lets the balance grow with the economy, and that this is NOT QE.
I blacklist commenters who abuse my site to spread these effing lies on my site. This shit is not funny.
Here is the Fed’s balance sheet before QE, before 2008:
Getting back to this has been their goal. We shall see if they can do it and stay independent, or if they get subsumed into the current insanity. I only give it 50/50.
There are a lot of crazy outcomes we hope to avoid to return to stability, and this was a time that for all the other problems on the way, was supremely stable.
Keep up the good work, and hope for the best.
Apple TV generally puts out good content but I just subscribe for one month and binge watch that service and cancel. But as others have mentioned streaming services, despite their price hikes, are still a deal compared to most other forms of entertainment such as concerts. It really too bad on concerts as artists could legally only allow transfer of tickets, not resell, but for whatever reasons, outside of Robert Smith, they don’t. 2 tickets to see you Cure at Shoreline cost me $80 total. Would have been double that or more if robots bought up all tickets and put up for resale.
To me these streaming services are much like satellite radio. I enjoy the service but I am only willing to pay so much for it. I currently have so many entertainment options that I cannot possible consume them all. Most have been added to my Spectrum cable service. If that starts increasing by much I will be cutting.
Microsoft increased the price of their Xbox consoles and Game Pass service by a lot this year. They did get hit with massive cancellations and no one is buying their video game consoles anymore. Streamers may put up with price increases, but gamers are pushing back. Microsoft price increases did get a bit out of control though. Game Pass Ultimate went from $20 a month to $30. Ouch!
I have been watching Youtube free movies with an ad blocker. I will be canceling Netflix again soon. I subscribe for a year, cancel for a few years….I’m in cancel mode again.