Spring 2022 18 The Economics of Streaming Is Having Multiple Subscriptions Worth the Increasing Prices? By Janie Walenda It’s impossible to understate how dramatically television has changed in the last decade. Streaming services have completely overhauled how we watch TV as well as how we pay for it. While initially services like Netflix seemed like a steal compared to cable, as streaming services have multiplied and continued to raise their prices, opting for streaming over cable seems like less of a bargain. Does the original content on streaming services make them worth it, despite the rise in prices? Once upon a time, Netflix was simply a DVD rental company. In 2007, however, they launched their streaming service, which grew steadily thanks to deals with various movie studios. While services like Netflix and Amazon Prime were active during the mid-2000s, the real game-changer came in the 2010s with original streaming content. With the debut of “House of Cards” in 2013, followed by shows like “Orange Is the New Black” and “Stranger Things,” Netflix completely reinvented the television-watching model. Dropping all the episodes of a season at once was radically different from the weekly
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