There’s no shortage of quotable lines in the classic 1989 movieMajor League. “Just a bit outside.” “You trying to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?”
Andone that I keep coming back to a lotrecently? The late James Gammon’s manager Lou Brown, naked and in search of hot water in the locker room: “I’ve had it with this nickel-and-dime stuff.”
It’s what comes to mind when you look at the state of the various streaming services going into 2024. You can’t begrudge them for trying to make more money — that’s literally what they’re here to do. But time and time again, one after another, they’ve been nickel-and-diming us.
And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.
Even worse, lately, has been the trend of adding new tiers of service with lower prices, offset by advertising. Sure, you pay less. But Netflix — whichuntil 2023 didn’t have any sort of advertisingon movies and shows — has come right out and said it: The companymakes more money off customers on that cheaper tier, because the ads more than make up the difference.
As online services fight for every single dollar, the only way we can fight back is by canceling.
Still, that’s not even the worst part. The real nickel-and-dime stuff is how features have been locked away behind more expensive tiers of service.
Let’s use Netflix again in another example: You don’t get 4K resolution without paying for its top tier of service. Maybe you’re OK with that. Maybe you’re not. YouTube TV charges extra for that, too. And I get it. Bandwidth costs money.
But Amazon twisted the knife even further with its scheme. Everyone now gets ads unless they pay another $3 a month to get rid of them. But it alsodid away with features like Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision— but didn’t bother to tell anyone. I guess Amazon just hoped we wouldn’t notice?
(Not on my list: The services disallowing password sharing. Theyshould have done that a long time ago.)
Look, the nickels matter. The dimes matter. The entertainment industry is a fickle one, and the business side of things is tough.
And I was wrong when I said there’s nothing we can do about it. We can cancel. We should cancel. We can come back if we want. But we need to take stock of what’s important. And if we’re not getting our money’s worth, it’s time to walk, even if only temporarily.
