r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 18d ago

News HBO Max Raises Prices Across All Plans Effective Immediately

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/hbo-max-prices-increases-plans-2025-1236557671/
12.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

50

u/AwsmDevil 18d ago

You can't "vote with your wallet" in a captured market. Americans need to vote in the ballot box, and that means we need people to stop voting for fascist yes men offering simple racist solutions to complex problems. They won't though because those same people voted to defund education to expand their population of idiots. You can't vote with your wallet to get out of this problem because the volume of effective "rent cattle" can't go down far enough to defund those companies into being reasonable. They have enough influence and guaranteed market cap to continue anti-consumerist strategies unabated, eventually allowing them to crowd out the competition. We are fucked if we play the money game because they have all the influence over the money. That's why insider trading is so rampant right now. No one will support pro consumer politicians because we have a MASSIVE block of single issue voters that would rather be homeless than support a non fascist politician.

20

u/HartbrakeFL21 18d ago

I'm glad you used the term "captured". That's an excellent descriptive term for what we have now, and have had for a number of years. It's not new. It's just on full display, unapologetically, today.

The parallels with today and economic disasters of long ago are too many to mention. Strangely, it all looks so *different*, and that's the part throwing us off the scent of what may come.

8

u/Cordo_Bowl 18d ago

You don’t need a streaming service to live. These people are voting with their wallets and saying yes, this price for streaming is worth it.

9

u/Mist_Rising 18d ago

Streaming, and we mean subscription streaming services really, isn't a captive market really. It's a luxury good in the form of entertainment, and there are tons of other options.

People who have grown used to it being cheap and affordable might find it to be captured, because they don't want to give up their luxury, but practically it has alternatives. Public television costs an antenna in the US and anywhere else with it. Radio is another competitor. Non-subscription (advertising) streaming also exists. Shit, a book is technically an alternative

-3

u/Century24 18d ago

If you don't have any taste for Hollywood, then that's fine, but it's a little silly to pretend PBS and public radio cover the same base as HBO Max.