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YouTube TV Costs $50 Per Month After Another Price Hike (engadget.com)
YouTube TV isn't immune to the latest wave of rate hikes plaguing the streaming world. From a report: The Google-owned service has announced that it's raising the base monthly price to $50 ($55 if you subscribe directly through an Apple TV), effective immediately for new subscribers and from May 13th onward for existing customers. You'll at least get something for your trouble, though, as YouTube TV will finally offer a host of additional channels.
You now have access to eight Discovery channels that include the original as well as Animal Planet, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, MotorTrend, TLC and Travel Channel. Oprah Winfrey's OWN channel is coming later in 2019, and Epix's movie-oriented channel is available today if you're willing to spend extra.
You now have access to eight Discovery channels that include the original as well as Animal Planet, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, MotorTrend, TLC and Travel Channel. Oprah Winfrey's OWN channel is coming later in 2019, and Epix's movie-oriented channel is available today if you're willing to spend extra.
The Pirate Bay is free -- $50 is almost basic cable pricing territory. What a joke.
Is it just me, or is the $50/month some sort of mythical sweet spot for monthly content subscription service bundles like this? Why does this sort of outdated âoebundlingâ approach continue to be so popular? Do consumers actually want this?
Parmasean Cheese. It's what's for dinner.
I'll pass. 50 bucks, lol.
These companies just don't get it, do they?
Give me an option where I can choose exactly what channels I want, and exclude the channels I don't want, and I'll be more than happy to pay for it.
I want a single place where I can have a single bill, not 17 monthly bills from 17 different services. I don't even care if the cost is the same. I want the simplilcity.
Well it's not going to cost me $50 a month. What is the point of having these services like youtube and hulu tv if they cost you just as much as a cable tv subscription if not more. You have to add in the cost of the internet to get your total cost. I think a lot of "cord cutters" over look this and that is what they want you to do.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Sounds like all the shite I never watch and don't want
We didn't ditch cable to end up with the same nonsense in streaming. I don't want access to eight Discovery channels. I might be interested in, say Animal Planet. On the other hand, you know where you can stick OWN.
NO BUNDLING, PEOPLE! I want to pay for what I want to watch. I do NOT want to pay for what I despise, which I am not going to watch anyway. Ergo, Google, you know where you can stick your YouTube TV.
I was on the $40/month DirecTV now with 105 channels. It went up to $65 a month which was too much for me. Why can't we do a cafeteria plan? Give me ABC, CBS, NBC, HGTV, ESPN, and that's it. I don't want anything else. I don't even need DVR capability, I just need my login to the tv provider to work to OAuth into the various channel apps so I can do their shows on demand.
- Vincit qui patitur.
The awesome thing abut video streaming is that at last I don't have to pay for a collection of channels I mostly hate.
So why on earth are companies trying to go back to a world where they bundle a bunch of crappy channels together with a handful that are good? Who is going to go for that, when you also have the option to just get good single channels, or indeed to just pay for the one show you actually like from a channel, one time?
It's not like I was a YouTube TV subscriber to begin with but I am mystified who considers subscribing to this with so many other options to be had.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What I celebrate most in YouTube is the death of the channel. I've never "subscribed" to one damn thing.
Obviously, if you find someone who produces smart content, it's nice to be able to browse that person's back catalogue. But you can do that with Andy Warhol, too, and he never had a "channel", he just had whatever he had made up to that point.
Channels are the natural domain of lazy, content-consuming slobs. Honestly, should what you watch next be a function of your recent viewing history? Only if questions pertaining to fresh material remains insufficiently answered.
But many people seem to prefer the girl-next-door algorithm. If the girl-next-door to the girl-next-door is even prettier, you continue to incrementally change your address: hill-climbing algorithm, one back-yard fence at a time.
Or you could head to a street cafe in the center of Paris, and skip all these silly "channel" increments.
Youtube Red is a different deal. It's the $10/month thing that takes Ads off Youtbue (adblock yes, I know), allows access to premium shows from well-known channels and provides paid streaming access to Google Play Music. Most of the premium shows aren't that good or interesting, and I'd rather support creators directly than give Google extra money, but it's an option.
Youtube TV is functionally a basic cable TV package for someone who just can't give up on their History channel or whatever.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Do you seriously think this offends me even a little, or that anyone with a brain reads your reply and thinks "oh, yeah, I agreed with that flippy guy at first, but once an AC called him a faggot, now I don't?"
More forced channels in base rate. game steaming may end up the same way.
$60/mo base for EA, Disney, Activision Blizzard (wow as an added change), paradox games, etc as the base and you must by base to add on things like cd projekt red.
I use a third party Android client called Smart Youtube TV for access on Set Top Boxes and mobile clients. It bypasses the ads. PCs running a browser can just block the ads in the normal way. That works well enough for me.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
When all these streaming services, I told myself that the max I would spend on any of them $1/day, so about $30/month. Unsurprisingly, I'm not subscribed to any of them anymore. Passive entertainment just isn't worth much more than that.
Cell phone service gets the $1.50/day treatment.
I hate fat people.
Maybe she'll give all her audience members a free year worth of YouTube TV. You get tv, you get tv, EVERYBODY GETS TV
I'll vote with my wallet : I'll just watch OTA channels to keep up with local news (we have only 4 OTA channels here). Read more books. More time for my hobbies : country dance (line and partner), gardening, house renovations, ... Found new hobbies...
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
If your primary customer is someone who is trying to be frugal with their entertainment spending ( a premise that I don't feel is all that far fetched for youtube ), then raising your prices to make your benefits irrelevant seem particularly stupid.
No wonder "cord cutting" has plateaued. It's bone headed decisions like this. But I'll tell you something; the more you antagonize your customer base, the more they realize they don't need what you're selling.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Just pass laws keeping Corp execs from serving on multiple boards and prohibit bonus structures. The system has been gamed and we need some different rules to shake up the top. Leaders are supposed to eat last.
Sounds simple enough, until you realize those passing laws are the corporate execs, or are controlled by them.
How else do you think we created this clusterfuck...
I pay $108.99/month for cable TV. That's a lot, I know, way too much for most of y'all. But here's why I do it:
- The wife and I enjoy watching sports. There currently is no way to get all of the available sports channels from a single streaming provider that I currently get with my cable provider. PlayStation Vue comes close at $50/month, but it is missing a bunch still. DirecTV now charges you MORE for the package that includes all of the ESPN channels than what I pay for cable!
- Most streaming plans limit your stream count. YouTube TV limits you to 3. DirecTV Now limits you to 2, but you can pay an extra $5 for 3. PlayStation Vue is the best at 5. I have 3 TVs in regular use in my house, sometimes up to 6 when college games are on. These streaming plans won't let me do that.
- Using HDHomeRuns with CableCARDs, I control my content. I can record and watch non copy protected shows however I want, so long as I have software that'll do it. I can run MCE Buddy and automatically cut commercials out. I can fill up as many hard drives as I want. I can stream recorded and live content remotely using whatever app I want. You can't do that with streaming services.
- Everything is dependent on your Internet working. You can't record anything. At least if/when my Internet/cable TV goes out I can still watch my locally recorded content. Yeah, unlimited DVR is nice, but it sure sucks when you can't get to it.
- Streaming plans uses your bandwidth. I don't have a bandwidth cap, but I sure feel for those who do. Watching cable TV doesn't touch my Internet bandwidth unless I'm streaming my content elsewhere, and that's the way I like it.
I fully understand the status quo won't last forever, and one day my setup will become obsolete. For now, though, I get more bang for my buck than I would get trying to pay various streaming providers to get what I already have.
The whole point of the internet is to take control of what you consume rather than have 150 channels shoving the same ad into your private space.
Just watch regular old YouTube for free. Honestly, the self produced content is a lot more interesting than that Hollywood crap.
Greedy much?
I think what offends me the most is the google's notion I should pay a lot of money to have my time wasted. Not just the google, of course. Facebook is clearly the #1 abuser of engagement.
(Still an open contest for #1 abuser of personal information, but we suckers can't even tell who's "winning" because they hide our own personal information from us. If I had to bet, I'd wager on Amazon to out-rape the others, but I might take Apple or Microsoft if you give me some points.)
As things stand now, I think I'm watching too much TV, but at least I'm not paying too much for it. I actually regard it as a sort of scam. The local cable company has a kind of pre-wired apartment deal with local apartment owners. The owners get to advertise their apartments as having "free" cable TV and Internet, but the REAL plan on the cable side is to up-sell the tenants to premium services. Laugh's on the cable company. The unpaid services are sufficient for my needs and excessive for my available time.
Then again (on the extreme other side of the topic) I might consider paying for about 1 hour of HBO per week, but that isn't HBO's business model either. I actually checked this story to see if the google was selling HBO as part of the package. No mention here, and not enough interest to visit YouTube with the question.
So the final answer is "No, thank you YouTube, and I do hope you implode ASAP."
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I dropped cable TV, and had to pickup both Youtube TV, and Direct TV Now so that I could get Viacom (Comedy Central) and the Discovery properties.
DirectTV Now has dropped Viacom for new subscribers, but I am still grandfathered in.
With this announcement, I can drop Direct TV Now. I don't watch Comedy Central enough to justify the charge. YouTube TV delivers a better image than Direct TV Now, as well as has a better DVR capability.
I'm a fan of this service. It's the only one that has all my local channels and it works well on all my devices. They are getting close to the maximum price I'd consider paying, and they'll be closer to the front of the line to get cut next time I get around to cancelling services at this new price.
That's a 44% price increase (from the $35 grandfathered price) for a bunch of crap we wont watch... on top of already subsidizing sports channels that we don't want. Guess it's time to "cut-the-cord" again.
I swapped my HTPC for a Nvidia Shield and haven't looked back. I use Kodi as the front end and it simply launches the AndroidTV app (Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, HBOGo, Disney, Nick, etc).
you can get HBO on it's own!
did youtube and google just totally miss the whole point of chord-cutting is people getting sick of feeling like they're paying for shit channels they never watch?
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
We've let Disney and about 5 other companies buy up every single TV station, news station, media outlet and franchise on earth. And we're not stopping them from further consolidation. The point is that you won't have a choice unless you want to drop out of pop culture entirely. Which sounds good on paper but makes you seem like a weirdo who can't relate to normal people.
I actually remember it being a bit of a problem for my kid in high school. When all the other kids were talking about such and such TV show she couldn't watch it because we were too broke for cable. It made it harder for her to socialize. TV and movies are, for non-nerds, a social thing. I know it's hard to understand that on a site full of nerds. We nerds evangelize our favorite shows but we don't usually hop on bandwagons. I only saw it because I saw it so many times with my kid. I remember she hated Twilight but read the books and watch the movies just so she could stay in line with her friends. As an outsider that seems nuts, but it's the reverse, it's what the "normies" do.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
To be worth $50. I pay less for cable, gigabit internet, tv in a package.
He is race-neutral and fair.
Did I stutter?
Or were you simply too lazy to read all the way to the third paragraph?
Or did you merely forget to say something useful about HBO's financial model? Perhaps you could have corrected my ignorance? LOTS of ignorance here, and you could have asked if you were unsure about which parts of my ignorance apply to HBO.
Or did you just have nothing to say, but lacked the self-control to say nothing?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
...how?
Simple. Do you remember back when traditional media was laughing so hard at the thought of downloading music? And when CD and traditional media was dying slowly, but surely?
Do you remember when news became more popular on the internet than the printed Traditional media?
Do you remember why Netflix succeeded? Because they put YOU in control of what you see and when you want to see it. Same with the original youtube, the idea was the little person being able to share their experiences, life, friends with the world. If they had an idea, they could produce it themselves and upload it, and it would instantly become available to everyone.
In traditional media - this kind of freedom would be unthinkable, simply because they are used to a controlled audience, professional actors, journalists and other media professionals - all one big payroll machine, a club of people who "made it" through the censorship. It was a comfortable club of a life with good pay, friends who had the same social status as you, had the same schooling as you, background as you - and a safe job in the spotlight or not (depending on the position) for life.
They had guaranteed funding, either from the government, or by advertisement where they had TOTAL control of what gets published or not, no competition whatsoever. This also meant they could basically decide what you'd like to watch, because there weren't other alternatives.
They also had a much more sinister power, the power of information distribution. Traditional media has always conveyed to the public that they represent neutralism and honest journalism, but history has shown us over and over again, it's paid media - paid by our officials and those with money enough to control the influence, and them being the trusted traditional media - they don't really want to give that power away, without a world war class fight, this has been a comfy place for a certain amount of people - over 100 years.
Now - in less than 10 years, all of this changed so fast that the big boys didn't even know what hit them, people stopped buying traditional media, because they had tons of new alternatives. Sure - you didn't get in-debt journalism, you often had to sift through 1000s of hours of amateur-garbage, but this grew too - and people soon realized they could earn money on their content too.
For traditional media - this is a disaster, they KNOW this is the final nail in the coffin, and they're prepared to fight tooth and nail to cling to life - and they're about to actually do that.
HOW?
Did you see what happened in E.U not one month ago? A certain law was passed that would change personal journalism, free media and almost every independent youtube channel for all future. Same with free media on the internet. Just because most people slept during the class, the bill passed and traditional media won big-time.
What traditional media haven't counted on though, is that they're essentially digging their own grave. With the onslaught of planned programming, planned advertisement, and mind numbingly stupid content... we as the public, just got a taste how freedom really tasted like (I'm talking about the early era You Tube), we know what it feels like to just watch whatever we feel like - live in the moment so to speak.
I for once, find it nearly impossible to watch TV after this, even listen to radio in my car. I never turn it on anymore, because I know it's just going to be endless amounts of Casino / betting ads or loan offers, and the little content there is - will be 80's reruns (albeit I love the 80's) it's cheaper to push, and they already own all the licenses to all of this music anyway, remember - they're basically owned by the people BEHIND traditional media.
But it's going to be a breath of fresh air - literally - just entertain ourselves with things we really should be doing, learning something, going outdoors, talk more with friends - and just watch whatever you want to, whenever you want to. I also have a HUGE Dvd collection,
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I still think it's a good deal if you plan to use the multiple accounts and DVR. But it's just not worth it to me, we'd need 3 accounts, 4 once my youngest gets older, and we wouldn't use the DVR much.
I think I’ll be happier with the dollar.
L'Idiot
One person primarily benefits from this all: David Zaslav, the CEO of the Discovery networks.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/1...
Oh, he helped Oprah start OWN, and Discovery has a majority stake in OWN at this point (so he OWNs it as well):
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/0...
I have YouTube TV and like it. I'm not sure what the alternatives are around this price point and feature set (DVR and on-demand are well implemented). These new channels are not compelling, but more repelling.
This is why we can't have nice things...
BlameBillCosby.com
other then its not ala carte. its all still a bunch of bundled trash combine with the few channels you whant.
paid tv will be dead soon. how many young people do you see ever buy cable or even these streaming services. if it was not for my dad i would not even have paid tv.
by time Comcast is done raping you with there fess and taxes your bill is going to be north of 200$ for the tv.
welcome your disany overlords.
Seriously? I gave up quality TV when it hit that price, I certainly wouldn't pay that for YouTube!
I'll pay for 50 channels when the deal includes 50 screens to watch them on and another 49 heads, so I can assign one of my heads to each channel. Also a time multiplexer and get rid of this sleep thing.
Enough with the joke already. Why would any sane person pay to have his valuable and limited time wasted on such a gigantic scale?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If you're in a Comcast area, chances are they are already raping you because they are the only internet offering with decent speed. Youtube only competes against the cable portion of the bill. At $50, I believe that my Internet + Youtube would be greater than the Internet + TV package from my internet provider.
Thankfully, I didn't fall for the Youtube thing. It is just cable TV over internet. Nothing new. I haven't had cable TV since about 2004 and have made do without it.
The whole package would only offer me about eight channels that I'd ever watch. Not worth it. I might have considered it if it had CNN even though the initial channels included a lot of junk. Then, by the time they added CNN, it was obvious where things were headed. This latest addition doesn't include a single channel that I would have ever watched.
If someone wants my business, 10 channels that I can pick for $10 would be a good deal. I would go for that if it offered the 10 I want.
Now Youtube TV costs more than when I first started paying for satellite. I canned Dish last year because the price had creeped to to over twice what it was when I started, and I was getting fewer, worse channels for the cost.
same but we know it will never happen. they could not keep forcing on extra channels just to line there pockets with.
I am guessing around 8.
But I would honestly want to know.
YouTube free has way more interesting content than 90% of what those networks offer. Rather than watching things that are running at set times you can watch what you want when you want.
Sorry but I dont really see the advantage of network TV anymore...
I don't think it's actually BROKEN so much as you need your own API key. I think it blocks the default API key that ships with the plugin. You just have to register for your own dev key and then change the one in the plugin settings.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Anyone try philo? Looks like pricing is much better.
Cheap storage VM.
Deduct the $1 and ditch that channel. It's useless anyway.