posh.wiki / blog

Another Rant, This Time About Subscription Video Services

2025-01-23

This originally started as a small anecdote for a friend's English class, but I accidentally wrote a bit too much.

In 2022, media company Paramount pulled several series, including the still-airing Star Trek: Discovery, from Netflix, in an effort to ~~force~~ draw new customers to their own streaming service, Paramount+. At launch, this service was only available in the USA, meaning that the roughly 95% of the world's non-American population would be unable to watch the show, sparking outrage among fans. You couldn't even use a VPN to get around it, since you needed a valid US credit card to sign up.

In July 2024, Radio Times reported that a single month of Prime Video would set you back £8.99. At the time of writing, Paramount+ markets its cheapest plan at £4.99 per month. This brings the total cost of accessing the service to £13.98 per month. On top of the base subscription price, certain shows and seasons have been left out of this package deal. I remember being unable to watch season 3 and 4 of Star Trek: The Lower Decks, as Amazon wanted almost £20 per season. Oh, and, there are still ads.

With over 26 full days worth of video content across the Star Trek cinematic universe, even the most dedicated of viewers would need to pay at least 2 months' subscription fee (nearly thirty pounds) for the opportunity to watch all of it. Watching at a more reasonable 24 hours per month, around one episode per day for the longer shows, will cost you a total £419.40. Doing the maths, this works out at around £1.52 per hour of video. Keep in mind, this is a generously low estimate of the cost. Note that this is a generous estimate, and does not take into account the inevitable price hikes or any seasons sold separately.

In comparison, all 130 hours of my current watch, Star Trek: Voyager, are available as a DVD box set for £59.99 on Amazon. This works out as around 38p per hour of video. In other words, if Prime and Paramount+ offered all of Trek at the £13.98 per month price, one would need to spend 96 hours (4 days) per month to make the subscription worth more than purchasing box sets at Voyager's price-per-hour.

We were sold subscription services under the guise that they were cheaper and more convenient than physical media. In fact, the opposite is true, up to a threshold most people won't meet.

Of course, this won't hold true for everything. Many movies and series have only ever been available on streaming services (see: Star Trek: Section 31, which releases tomorrow exclusively on Paramount+). Shorter series are also more likely to be better valued on a subscription service than in purchased physical media. Still, the fact that this can happen at all? Feels like a scam that I can pay less for a better experience in such a significant number of cases.

So, friendly reminder to own physical media where you can. Get yourself a cheap blu-ray player (not all DVD players support blu-ray!) and save money in the long term.