[Life] Learning a New Term - Streamflation

 Have you ever heard of streamflation? I heard of shrinkflation about a year ago when inflation around the world is starting. Streamflation is a new term for me but I could guess that it is something related to inflation. 

image from Pixabay

Yes, inflation is everywhere around the world. Streamflation (Streaming + Inflation) is a term used to describe the increasing OTT subscription fee. Ad-free OTT subscription fee in the US increased about 25% over the year on average. Average OTT subscription fee per month is 15 dollars right now. Wall Street Journal said that the media companies are betting that customers will pay up and that they are testing the customer loyalty. It is true that the number of people spending more time using streaming services over watching TV is increasing. According to the Nielsen, percentage of using streaming service increased 7% compared to the same month last year, while watching TV decreased by 50%. 

image from Pixabay

Disney+ plans to raise the fee from $10.99 to $13.99 starting from October, 2023. This is twice the price when it first released its service in 2019. Netflex did not raise the fee but they took away basic option starting from July, 2023 and only provide Ad-free subscription options. The price for Ad-free options are $15.49  for standard and $19.99  for premium which is very high compared to the $9.99 basic option. That does not mean that you have to bear high price to use OTT services. If you want cheaper options, you can choose Ad-supported options. Disney+ will provide Ad-supported option starting from October, 2023 at $7.99. Netflex is already providing Ad-supported option at $6.99. 

image from Pixabay

Currently in Korea, account sharing services on Netflex is still available while it is forbidden in the U.S. What is interesting about this is that while there were a lot of complaints about new policy, Netflex actually has seen huge increase in new subscribers after banning account sharing on May, 2023. Netflex also announce that they will apply this policy to other markets such as India and Japan. Many expect that this policy may soon be applied to Korea as well. 

image from Pixabay

Are you a subscriber of the streaming service? What do you think about streamflation? Do you think this will affect the people's use of the streaming services?