Pricing at streaming services driving viewers to piracy
Despite the insistence of the streaming segment, and its proponents, that price is no object for consumers, new research suggests the opposite. As the likes of Netflix and Disney+ hike prices, and foist new advertsing tiers to users who can’t keep up with the inflated cost, visits to bootleg streaming websites have surged since the pandemic.
As broadband and 5G coverage has improved and its costs fallen, while the processing power of mobile technology has also ramped up, most consumers have been more than happy to put the technology to use in their daily search for entertainment. During the lockdown months of 2020, this offered streaming the opportunity to enter into a golden age – where, along with its usual digital-first crowd, it could mop up swathes of audiences who could no longer consume film in theatres.
When the streaming giants like Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Netflix used this as a chance to ramp up prices, however, that golden age soon came into question. As the market diversified, and more and more production companies launched their own premium platforms, the content consumers could find in one place began to dwindle – as studios began removing their properties from the platforms of rivals. So, in an alleged age of plenty, rather than paying one subscription for access to a digitised version of the old video rental stores, people were expected to fork out multiple fees to disparate providers.
Amid this atmosphere – and with a cost-of-living-crisis detracting more than £2,000 from the average household budget, six in seven consumers globally said they wanted an all-in-one platform to simplify their entertainment experiences with video streaming, fantasy sports, social media, ecommerce and more. A 39% portion of consumers added that one way or another, they would be decreasing their streaming budget in the coming months.
As the boom in streaming stalled, investment pressure left firms between a rock and a hard place. So, rather than climb down from pricing practices that were delivering profit, however unpopular they were, many forged ahead as though there was no issue – and commissioning studies to back that up.
Amid claims of a ‘stabilising’ market, industry experts have since pointed to the idea that ‘churn’ is declining. Just 35% of global streamers plan to cancel a service in the next 12 months, down 2% from 2024 and – while that rate slowing doesn’t account for some people who downsized last year having no more streaming services to quit – researchers have further emphasised good news for streaming platforms, as 88% said they’re streaming the same or more than last year, confirming continued engagement despite a cooling growth rate.
Even then, though, the future painted is not nearly as secure as streamers would like their investors to believe. A 42% chunk of consumers now feel they are spending too much money on streaming and – amid a period of spectacular economic uncertainty, when trade tariffs and regional warfare are pushing up prices once again – it may not be long before they resolve that they need to do something about that feeling.
Some already are – and in a way that many studios had banked on streaming to end. With the ease of access video content providers offered, piracy reached a low in 2020, with bootleg video streamers receiving 130 billion website visits during the pandemic. But according to London‑based piracy monitoring and content‑protection firm MUSO, this has since boomed.
While between 2023 and 2024 there was a drop in piracy – which MUSO partially suggested could be due to production delays meaning some newer films did not end up drawing traffic on pirate sites – the long-term trend is up. 2023’s 229.4 billion visits still represent a recent peak, but the 216.3 billion in 2024 is hardly encouraging for studios – especially when considered against that 2020 figure.
At present, it is unlikely that this makes much of a dent in the revenues of streamers, or the studios behind them. But as economic conditions worsen, and bottom-lines come into question, figuring how to re-engage with ‘pirate’ audiences may become an essential concern.
