Enshittification Ensures Streaming Prices Soar Faster Than Any Other Consumer Good

from the this-is-why-we-can’t-have-nice-things dept

According to new data from the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), streaming video subscription prices jumped a whopping 29 percent year over year. That’s compared to the 2.7 percent jump in consumer costs seen more generally across other goods and services.

Of course BLS doesn’t explain why streaming video prices are soaring at such a dramatic rate. It’s something we’ve touched on repeatedly: as giant media companies increasingly consolidate, they’re trying to find new, frequently obnoxious ways to continue to goose quarterly earnings and create the illusion of perpetual growth despite a major slowdown in new subscribers.

That means significantly more ads (even if you pay for no ads). It means higher overall prices despite a decline in quality. It means layoffs, worse customer service, and companies that refuse to even host popular content they paid for because they’re too cheap to pay for residuals. It means new annoying restrictions on what you’re paying for, and companies that harass you for sharing your password with your college kid or elderly relative. It means more lazy, clickbait content catering to the lowest common denominator and less quality, thoughtful art.

It means enshittification.

And it’s going to get worse. The corrupt Trump administration is demolishing whatever is left of U.S. media consolidation limits, ensuring another massive round of harmful “growth for growth’s sake” mergers that temporarily goose earnings, create tax breaks, and badly justify outsized executive compensation, but generally make all of the existing problems in the industry worse (especially for labor and consumers).

According to the BLS, streaming and gaming subscriptions and rentals saw higher “streamflation” (read: price gouging) in 2025 than any of the other industries or services measured. The closest comparison was coffee (28 percent), which is largely soaring due to Trump’s ignorant and pointless tariffs that consumers have to pay for.

If you’re old enough, you’ve already watched this play out with traditional cable (many of the executives screwing up streaming were the same ones that screwed up traditional cable). So you know the pattern: they’ll continue to push their luck on price hikes, driving many people to free alternatives (or piracy), at which point the executives who made out like bandits blame everyone and everything but themselves.

None of this is reflected honestly by any of the media companies that cover this sort of thing, because their tendency toward honest and courageous journalism is being undermined by the same forces. Like check out this Hollywood Reporter breakdown of the issue, which they dub “streamflation.” They amusing hint at the fact there might be causes for this massive surge in pricing, but can’t get around to listing any:

Again, because enshittification doesn’t discriminate, and the same forces making streaming video more expensive and shittier are taking a hatchet to U.S. journalism and truth in service to the almighty dollar. Corporate media is incapable of reporting honesty about corporate media: there’s no money in it.

Filed Under: competition, consumer protection, consumers, enshittification, inflation, media consolidation, mergers, price hikes, streaming, tv, video

Companies: disney, netflix, warner bros. discovery