When everything was bundled together, we complained about paying for things we didn't use. Unbundling was initially cheaper because it was just extra profit on the side.

Now, it's becoming the primary business model and has to stand on its own.

It turns out economy of scale is real, and we've lost it. Other people were paying for our content before, but not watching it. How does real public educational content get funded in this new world? Most of us probably agree that there should be quality, unbiased content.

Cashflow consistency has a value as well, so subscribing and unsubscribing creates a cost that needs to get covered by someone. Currently, the loyal subscribers.

I'm not saying things can't improve, just that many unrealistic, entitled attitudes exist. Content is better now than before as providers have to compete more to get subscribers, so the value is greater.

> a cost that needs to get covered by someone. Currently, the loyal subscribers.

Those loyal subscribers don't get anything in return for that loyalty. the nash equilibrium is therefore to not be a loyal subscriber, but only subscribe for the shortest period of time and consume the maximum possible.

Hence, eventually the service would lose all loyal subscribers.

There's time, effort, and cognitive load in switching. Potential self-image impacts. Some people will think past their immediate needs and want to support Netflix, because that's how they fund good content. The most price-conscious people leave. Many people don't optimize.

Fairness here would be putting the externalities of switchers on themselves, but that doesn't usually work well in the market. We'll probably just tolerate a certain amount of these 'switch freeloaders'.

Given the number of services, the cognitive load of switching will become normal. I'll be cancelling Netflix at the same time I resubscribe to Stan. And consumers will demand it becomes easier, or they won't bother signing up in the first place. We are already seeing articles in the popular media about how expensive it is to subscribe to everything, so the market is well aware. Over here, if I want to subscribe to Paramount+ (and a few others) I just select it in the Prime app and start watching in the Prime app. All that is missing is easy cancellation, or being able to purchase a single month rather than a subscription. I'm reasonably confident that Amazon will provide a way to make this easier once they have the second tier streamers by the short and curlies. But just having one spot to 'manage my subscriptions' like it is now makes it pretty easy right now for anyone who pays attention to their credit card statement. Heck, even a bank may decide to differentiate themselves by identifying recurring subscriptions and sending service cancellation notifications on your behalf.

actually Nash Equilibrium would suggest loyal subscribers to be loyal unless the rules of the Game change for the service to exist at all i.e. someone has to keep not watching and paying for someone to keep watching in short busts and not pay for rest of the time to avoid catastrophic changes.

This is looking back at cable with some serious rose tinted glasses. It’s nothing like you describe. Also nothing forces people to sub to all streaming services. We switch them up and pay a small fraction of the $150/mo our parents paid for cable.