TALKING TECH
Watching films ain’t as cheap as it used to be – especially if they feature dragons
Duncan Bell considers whether premium pricing is taking the sheen off streaming services
“Netflix, and my good friends at Disney+ themselves, have attracted a ‘backlash’”
This month I got a very kind email from Disney+, telling me that my year of complimentary streaming, which they had gifted me was coming to an end. There was only one problem with this: I paid for Disney+ about one year ago, and had absolutely no idea they’d ever given me a free account. That’s what you get for not thoroughly emptying your email inbox. Lesson learned.
This was an ironic thing to happen in a month where the cost of streaming has suddenly become highly controversial. Netflix, and my good friends at Disney+ themselves, have attracted a ‘backlash’ from the sort of people who habitually use the word ‘backlash’.
In the case of Disney it’s because it charged extra for a film it had originally intended to release in what we used to call ‘cinemas’. Remember them? The film in question was something called – let me check my notes here – Raya and the Last Dragon, and Disney wanted us to pay £20 for it.
Now, as a grown adult, I would not want to pay £20 to watch something called Reya and her Lost Dragon, so that seems expensive. Although if I were to watch it with my boyfriend, in a certain sense we would be paying £10 each. Unfortunately, in a more realistic sense, I would still be paying £20 while he would be paying £0, because he is a freeloading bastard.
On the other hand, I have five nieces and nephews. If they all turned up at once – admittedly about as a likely as a trip to the actual cinema, as things stand – I would pay £20 in a snap, if it kept them entertained for three hours, which seems to be the standard length of Disney films these days.
There’s a great line in Withnail & I – a film you probably can’t get on Disney+ – where a holiday cottage is described as ‘free to those who can afford it; very expensive to those who can’t’. Roy and his Friendly Dragon seems to divide would-be viewers along these lines. In my hypothetical nieces and nephews scenario, taking them to see the film in the cinema, where it was originally intended to be released, in central London, would cost at least £60 for tickets, plus transport, and then afterwards you’d probably get mugged, because it’s central London.
A lot of people, however, just don’t have £20 spare to spend on a film about dragons that they may or may not turn out to like. So I can see why they were put out by Disney+ asking for extra to see it – the annual sub is £79 a year, after all.
If you’re a single person short on cash, who wants to watch the Disney movie on their own, £20 on top of a £79 per year sub is rather a lot. Although I have two caveats for that: if you wait, it will presumably be on Disney+ for free. And if you’re a single adult, shouldn’t you be watching Line of Duty on iPlayer or something about murder on Netflix?
Speaking of Netflix, the world’s favourite vendor of slightly ropey old movies and very long series about people murdering other people was also in price-based backlash hot water this month. Rather brilliantly, this was because it suggested it’d like everyone to please start paying for their service, now, rather than using a login provided by their parents/ children/ex partner/bloke at work.
It’s not often I feel sorry for massive corporate behemoths, but the furious reaction to this notentirely-unreasonable suggestion did make me feel a little bit sorry for them. Although I got over it.
Netflix has, rightly, had a lot of love during lockdown. But it seems the test of how much everyone really loves it will be if people grudgingly pay up or not. Expect to see either Netflix profits rocket, or Netflix profits stay exactly the same, while its audience halves.