The original post: /r/television by /u/The_Autumn_Alchemist on 2025-10-22 20:21:47.
The primary reason is the price hike, again, after the last several years of having the prices raised on us. It’s worth noting that from 2015-2022 there were NO subscription price increases and HBO still had the standard $14.99/mo for almost a decade. Since AT&T’s acquisition in 2023, HBO has raised the subscription price every year, likely to help pay for the failed Discovery merger venture and passing their financial difficulties onto the consumer.
The top modern series that I enjoy the most are GoT House Of The Dragon, Dune Prophesies, Perry Mason, and True Detective. I was hoping The Last Of Us would be another banger but was overall very disappointed, though it had its moments. There really just isn’t enough content to warrant another price hike imo. I prefer quality of quantity, which is why I like HBO, but if you’re going to hit me with another price increase it needs to be commensurate to the content given.
I’ve been going straight digital with all of my purchased media content for quite a while now after selling all of my Blu-ray’s and DVD’s, purchasing films and TV shows that I like through AppleTV to have a virtual media library at my fingertips. It’s actually cheaper than having physical assets and I’m convinced that Apple is too big to fail at this point so I figure purchasing digital media through them is as safe a bet as any. If I like a show on HBO I’ll just buy the series on Apple or I can rent it the same way. Spending $10-$20 a season on a series that I know I like, that has replay ability, and that I can watch anytime I want in perpetuity feels like a better deal than spending $100+ every year on a company that only puts out something new and watchable once or twice twice a year, if I’m lucky.
Anyways, that’s just my two cents and that’s how I’d rather spend my money as of right now as I feel like it’s a smarter long term investment. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the Paramount offer, and if that acquisition goes through, what sorts of changes we might see with HBO. I kind of like the idea of Paramount taking over at this point (they really couldn’t do much worse) and David Ellison’s vision for Paramount is more in line with what I agree with so I’d assume that his vision for WBD would be similar.
Cheers!