Is this really the middle class U.S family reality?
I would think my family having access to read good quality journals rather than get their news and analysis just from social media or click bait content farms is worth $50 / month ?
I know only 2 top quality newspapers not behind a paywall : Aljazeera and The Guardian, both while have decent American coverage or not amercian. Perhaps you can also include NPR, BBC and few other high quality news sources that are still free but are not newspapers.
Every high quality news source even news agencies like Reuters[1] are now behind paywalls.
[1] Associated Press is still free, given their non-profit status hopefully will remain so.
Anyway, what you say makes sense, but I just don’t think many people drop $50/month on that stuff. They don’t see the value, and continue to feed Facebook.
They came to prominence when Bin Laden used to give them recorded tapes and interviews post 9/11. They have comprehensive and deeper coverage on topics and geographies [1][2] where western news orgs won't focus.
Beware though, they have biases too like everyone, particularly on covering Qatar and Middle East. The government funds them as tool of geopolitical soft power by creating an honest dependable news, no different from UK with BBC but without the colonial undertones, on average with global topics they are a solid source.
[1] In particular areas with some Muslim population, i.e lots of Africa, East Asia etc
How could you not have Disney+ if you have kids ?
Netflix is at 75M Americans paying for it (and many others sharing), typical family definitely has more than just Apple Music and HBO
I have only reasonably included couple of options in each category, you could mix and match preferences and use different providers or may get deals and it is part of combo with some other plan , however you will still be in this range.
- Streaming: ($121) (Prime, Apple have other uses bundled, Disney is undroppable if you have kids)
- Sports: ($33) ( or any other 2 sports ) - Music/Podcasts: ($50) - Newspapers/ Magazines: ($65) Total: $269On top you could be paying for
Final total: $700 / month on just subscriptions and licenses