Years ago, streaming services were affordable enough to justify having multiple subscriptions on the go. That's no longer the case.
Disney+ has just become the latest streaming service to announce price hikes for UK customers.
The media giant will roll out increases of up to £24 a year for its 'Standard' and 'Premium' plans over the next few weeks.
It comes after Netflix axed its cheapest package over the Summer, while Amazon told customers to hand over an extra £2.99 if they wanted to avoid ads on its Prime Video service.
These bill hikes have come at a time when we are positively overwhelmed by choice, too.
There have never been so many streaming services to choose from, with the likes of Paramount+, Now TV and the like all competing for our cash.
You’d think that competition would drive prices down, but in fact the opposite is happening, leaving many of us signed up to increasing numbers of services, each of which are hiking their bills regularly.
Watch Sky Sports without the lengthy contract: get Now TV from £14.99
Making money from apathy
These streaming services all essentially rely on our apathy in order to enjoy ever-increasing incomes from us.
They entice us in with a free trial, a week or a month perhaps, with the hope that we enjoy the films and TV on offer sufficiently that we stick around.
And, once we are signed up, the hope is that even if we don’t actually use the service that much, we also don’t particularly notice the money being spent on remaining a member.
This is particularly true if you go for a monthly membership, where you are spending £10 or so a month, rather than the annual memberships.
Then, when bills are hiked, it’s easy to just overlook or tell yourself that you’re still getting a good deal.
Really, what’s the difference between £10 a month and £12 a month? Never mind the fact that in percentage terms it’s a 20% price hike, with nothing additional on offer.
It’s not exactly a new tactic, either.
Gyms have long benefited from embracing this approach, reeling in customers in January when they are hoping to start the new year in a positive way and lose a few pounds, only to then end up losing money instead when their interest in curls and the like drops, but they don’t get around to cancelling the membership.
Insurance firms often work in a similar way, getting us in with a compelling premium quote for the first year and then hiking that cost in the following years, in the hope we simply auto-renew year after year.
Watch Sky Sports without the lengthy contract: get Now TV from £14.99
Time to chop and choose
Whenever there is a price hike for a subscription service, that should push us to take a step back to review what we are paying for and how often we actually use it.
With streaming services in particular, there is a compelling argument to simply sign up for a month or so, work your way through the stuff you definitely want to watch, and then cancel.
There’s no point hanging on to that Netflix membership that you only really want for the next series of Bridgerton, when it won’t be on the platform for another couple of months.
But with other subscriptions, it’s really important to judge whether you’re really getting value for money from it.
Do you need that Spotify family membership if only one person uses it?
Is it really necessary to keep paying for that Experian membership, to keep an eye on your credit report, when you could get much the same service for free from rival providers?
I know it’s time to start pruning my own outgoings on these services.
I’ve certainly not been immune to being sucked in to lengthy memberships of all sorts of subscriptions, and while on the face of it, a single membership isn’t a lot, once you have five or six on the go at the same time it quickly adds up, potentially hitting unsustainable levels.
Our household budgets are under incredible strain. While inflation has fallen from the peaks of the last few years, many of us are still poorer now than we were before the cost of living crisis struck.
Given these pressures, we need to be confident we are getting good value from every penny we spend, so making sure you aren’t wasting cash on barely used subscriptions ‒ particularly those of streaming services ‒ is essential.