It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Comcast

When I got the email from YouTube TV last week, I thought it was an error. Or rather, about an error. After all, just three days earlier they had publicly denied a report stating they were on the verge of raising prices. But actually, if you read the sort of weasel-wording (since deleted), they’re not denying anything other than an “incorrect price for the YouTube TV base plan” at that particular moment. As it turns out, Verizon just jumped the gun. A few days later, YouTube TV was indeed raising the base price from $72.99 to $82.99 a month, as my inbox confirmed.

First and foremost, that’s an obnoxiously large price increase. I’m no math major, but a $10 hike when the base price is under $100 is more than 10%. And it follows an $8 price hike — $64.99 to $72.99 — just last year. In other words, in less than two years, the price has gone from $64.99 to $82.99. This time I will do the math — or have ChatGPT do it for me — that’s a 27.7% price increase.

Prior to that, they did a hike from $49.99 to $64.99 in 2020. That one was so annoyingly large that I also wrote a post about it at the time, noting that it felt like YouTube TV was starting to look a lot like the cable TV services it was replacing for millions of homes, including mine. To me, at the time, it was more about passing the $50/month threshold. Oh to be young again. It was clear where the puck was heading. And now we’re even closer. YouTube TV is clearly going to soar past $100/month sooner rather than later.

And what’s wild is that Google is making the exact same mistakes that cable did back in the day. The mistakes that led to cord-cutting and to the rise of not only the streaming services, but also YouTube TV!

Look, I get that none of this is cheap. But it's also more expensive than it should be because of choices you’re making! I was completely and totally happy with the package of channels YouTube TV launched with back in 2017. I was even happier with the price: $34.99/month. Yes, just seven years ago, YouTube TV was less than half the price than it is right now.

But, but, but, they have more content, YouTube TV is quick to tell you in every email talking about every price hike. Sure, that’s nice, but if I had a choice, I would keep my current channels for no price hike. There is no choice. Again, this was the real problem that lead to the decline of cable. While all the talk was about a la carte, plenty of us would have settled for simply smaller bundles. But they refused to offer those. Or their carriage agreements stopped them from offering those. Either way, YouTube TV rose and is now doing the same thing!

One big driver of the YouTube TV price hikes has clearly been the addition of NFL Sunday Ticket. That’s fine, it seems like that’s working out for them. But it’s not working out for me as I don’t subscribe to Sunday Ticket nor do I plan to. Yet I clearly have to help pay for it. And YouTube TV already used that excuse for the increase last year. This time, all we’re getting is:

We don’t make these decisions lightly, and we realize this has an impact on our members. We are committed to bringing you features that are changing the way we watch live TV, like unlimited DVR storage and multiview*, and supporting YouTube TV’s breadth of content and vast on-demand library of movies and shows.

I mean, to me, it sure feels like they’re making these decisions awfully lightly. Worse, it feels like they’re making such calls from a position of market power. Because YouTube TV has become the leading vMVPD service, they undoubtedly feel like they have some pricing power here.

And while I do think they have the best service, it’s largely simply because they're offering unlimited cloud DVR capabilities. The UI/UX is nothing to write home about. Any of the other vMVPDs could match them, though perhaps not as easily thanks to, you know, Google — specifically, Google’s Cloud. Perhaps Amazon should offer a fully-on Prime TV vMVPD and undercut YouTube TV on price, like YouTube TV once did to cable. “Your margin is my opportunity” and all that.¹

But again, really, what I want — and I know I’m not alone here — is simply a service that allowed you to pick and choose what channels you want and pay for those. And not pay for the ones you don’t. Imagine that!

Again, I know that’s not feasible in our current world because of carriage fee bundling by content owners, but that world is slowly dying. We undoubtedly won’t get true a la carte, but even just skinnier bundles are clearly what is needed here. And the streamers are already teaming up to offer those. YouTube TV needs to get with that programming. Sling and others have long had at least some level of options. YouTube TV needs at least one that’s substantially less money than $82.99. Pronto.

Will this latest price hike lead to a mass cancellation? Hard to know for sure, but obviously Google is worried about it as they’re immediately offering old price lock-ins for a half a year to anyone trying to quit. I just locked in mine. And if YouTube TV doesn’t offer more options beyond the $82.99 package in six months, I will quit. Nearly everything is streaming now anyway, and anything that’s not — including sports — is coming. Fast.

This is all just such a disappointing self-own by YouTube TV here. Again, they’re becoming the very thing that everyone grew to hate and opened the door for YouTube TV in the first place. Now the cycle repeats. Sing it with me: "it’s beginning to look a lot like Comcast."

¹ I recognize that there are likely already little-to-no margins here.