Disney is raking its customers over the coals with a 75% price hike for their annual subscription (originally $80.) People wonder why piracy is on the rise.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
1421 points (97.3% liked)
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
54539 readers
203 users here now
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
Rules • Full Version
1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy
2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote
3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs
4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others
Loot, Pillage, & Plunder
📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):
💰 Please help cover server costs.
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Ko-fi | Liberapay |
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Disney’s desperation is showing—just look at their stock price the past 2 years.. down 50%
I’m honestly surprised they didn’t raise their subscription fees sooner. Unfortunately for them it’s a double edged sword, which will cause a lot of people to cancel and quite possibly harm them in the long run.
Meh, might not hurt them, obviously their suits don't think so.
What they're trying to do is convert or lose low-value customers and make high-value customers and save bandwidth at the same time. Fewer high-value customers also has an impact on support costs.
I did the same with my little computer support business. Doubled prices and kept the solid customers.
I straight steal my media, so I don't have a dog in this fight. Actually, I'm a little stunned that anyone pays for this bullshit in the first place.
Who may now seek cheaper alternatives.
And they are free to do so! Why do I want small-time, bitchy customers who won't, or can't, pay? Let someone else coming up in the world take them on. I did my time, they can do theirs.
Pick one:
A restaurant that charges $10 per burger, at a cost of $3 per burger.
A restaurant that charges $5 per burger, at a cost of $3 per burger.
Capitalism is common sense!
CAVEAT: When decoupled from a sense of the greater good. Which is sometimes called morality.
Anyone who calls any customer "bitchy" for not staying after raising prices deserves to jump off a cliff.
If he meant exactly what you said, I agree. But, there is an alternate interpretation of what the guy was saying:
You tend to get different kinds of customers with different price ranges. The ones who can afford to spend money generally don't give a crap about what you're billing them for, and they just want the work done properly.
The ones who aim to get a "good deal" tend to be less hands-off and more critical about the work done/supplies used and billed for. Frugal customers take extra time and sanity to field questions/suggestions, and sometimes, it's just not worth dealing with.
If raising his fee filters out the latter category, it's hard to blame him. I wouldn't want to deal with penny-pinchers either, and simply being more expensive than the competition is an effective deterrent.
^ This is exactly what I meant.
And if this is a problem for you, maybe you don't deserve to be in business.
All businesses have cheap customers that you bend over backwards for but they still leave a bad review. Those types hurt businesses and force strategies to not have cheap customers.
Or raise prices and don't deal with them. Guy didn't say he was hurting from raising prices. Man some of you guys seem to think everything should be free, wonder if you practice what you preach and work for free.
a raise in price should correspond to an increase in value being provided
The 2nd option, as a consumer lol.
Disney has for the last few decades positioned itself as a premium product at a premium price (think the entry costs for theme parks, cruises, etc.) much the same way Apple has. They clearly think their content is worth the premium, so they're going for it.
Also, a lot of their best films are going public domain in the coming years, so they need to maintain and grow their revenue stream somehow.
Shedding ABC, eliminating physical media, and increasing streaming prices makes total sense if you think the way they do.