Friday, July 26, 2024
I'm no fan of the state of streaming: Between companies continuing to raise prices and cracking down on password sharing, this whole thing is starting to feel like cable all over again.
That said, what are you going to do: not watch TV? There's so much good content coming out all the time, that there are probably a few subscription services you want to watch on any given evening. If those three happen to be Disney+, Hulu, and Max, you might like this new bundle—if you can stomach some compromises.
There are two Disney+, Hulu, and Max bundles
The bundle, offered by Disney, comes in two plans: The first is an ad-supported tier across all three services. For $16.99, you can watch Disney+, Hulu, and Max content with some advertising interruptions. That would normally cost you $25.97 if subscribing to all three services individually ($9.99 for Max, and $7.99 each for Disney+ and Hulu).
If you don't want to deal with ads, you can choose the more expensive "No Ads" bundle, which will cost you $29.99 per month. While that certainly isn't "cheap," it is $18.98 cheaper than subscribing to the add-free plans individually, which totals $48.97. ($16.99 for Max, $17.99 for Max, $13.99 for Disney+). This plan also supports downloads, which the "With Ads" plan does not, surprisingly.
On the surface, these aren't terrible deals: If you want to watch content from all three of these services each month, either plan will be less expensive than keeping individual subscriptions going. But there are two caveats here to consider.
Max probably won't stream in 4K
As reported by The Verge, Disney is being cagey about the video quality of the streams under these specific bundles. The company won't disclose streaming resolutions on the record, which leads The Verge to suspect that the plans will be capped at the resolutions you'd expect for With Ads and basic ad-free services. While that won't be a surprise for With Ads, it's a bummer for Max, whose base ad-free plan only offers 1080p streaming. You normally need to subscribe to the more expensive ad-free plan to access 4K streaming, which doesn't seem to be the plan offered here. If you want to watch shows like House of the Dragon in crispy 4K resolution, you'll need to subscribe to Max individually for $20.99 per month. Yikes.
Bundling your streaming services limits your freedom
While streaming has changed a lot since its introduction to the market (in many ways for the worse) one major benefit has always remained: You can cancel anytime you want. You can subscribe to Netflix to watch the latest season of Bridgerton, then cancel it immediately after. You have to pay for the month, so you can watch whatever else you want, but after 30 days, you're free—at least, until you subscribe to watch Bridgerton's next season.
When you tie yourself to a bundle, however, you limit your freedom to jump around plans each month. Sure, you can cancel your bundle whenever you want, but you'll have to cut all three services at once. If you find you're not watching enough Disney+, too bad: In order to get rid of one of these services, you have to cancel them all.
So, bundling really makes sense when you know you're going to watch these services all the time. That's not a farfetched idea: All three have a backlog of excellent shows and movies to watch, as well as a regular stream of new content. But if you know you only sign into streaming services to watch one or two particular shows as they come out, bundling might not be the move.
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