this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Well, I think they do risk costing too much. I felt this with the recent Netflix changes. Spotify at least (to my understanding) has far closer to "all music" than any streaming service has "all shows / movies" so there's that too, you probably should compare to several streaming services.
But you're right - at a certain price people just have to go without. At a lower price people might still choose to go without. I don't know where those prices are for these services. The closest I've ever come is Satallite Radio. I was fine paying ~$100 a year when I drove every day. But they keep trying to charge like $260 if I don't watch it at renewal. I could call and get them down to about half, so it had crept up to $120 or so. But now I don't drive much with WFH. So even $120 wasn't worth it. For my once a month or so long trip, I have a smartphone that I can stream, preload with audio, and do podcasts from. So I cancelled. Eventually I got a letter "please come back" - we'll give you a year for $60. Well, I'm assuming they're not losing money on this - it would be kind of stupid to IMO, so it means they could probably offer it for $60ish a year but try and get 4 times that amount if you don't pay attention. IDK, I never would have wasted their reps time yearly or cancelled if it was just $60 a year. But in the aggregate I bet the people who just don't pay attention make them more money than the cost of dealing with someone like me.
What was my point? Oh yea - it's not just "can I afford this", but do I think it gives me $x in value? I might suggest keeping your eyes open for alternate sources or alternate entertainment and you might save a lot of money.
I grew up poor(ish), have been close to homelessness in my life more than once. So I'm not stranger to going without. Fortunately for me I can afford price hikes like this without even taking notice. I feel I am privileged. It doesn't make me any less angry though. I don't mind the price hikes on services due to inflation, but those same companies will lay you off and refuse pay raises. Last company I worked for told me I was lucky to get anything at all. But they increased their prices, didn't suffer a single loss, and they still used it as an excuse to fuck their employees, and their customers. At the end of the day they made more because of it, not less. I don't care about pay raises for myself, but the people under me absolutely deserve more.
I feel you, dude.
I am lucky to work for a place that takes really good care of me, so a dollar a month is basically nothing, but I still save and invest every dollar I can because in America, your life can go from privileged to impoverished in the blink of an eye if you don't have a backup plan.
I don't mind the extra buck for Spotify, but this is a legit concern. Nearly every American at least is suffering under a 30% to 50% increase in their cost of living over the last two years, and the Federal Government isn't doing anything to address it. People are going to be unsubscribing to a lot of these services and doing a lot more pirating.