[s17n]

You aren't going to be able to spend less money though. Since there's zero marginal cost to adding extra channels, you should assume that the price you're getting charged isn't actually based on the number of channels you subscribe to.

A better way to think about bundle pricing is that the channels you really want cost $50, and they throw in a whole bunch of other crap for free. Why turn down free stuff?

[newbie789]

If those channels are free (and by that reasoning, not actually factored into the price of my package) then why am I unable to get individual channels or create my own bundle? Either I'm subsidizing stuff that I don't want to watch, or I'm not.

Is your point that I can't spend less because... they're going to get $50 out of me either way? Except that's impossible because there is no other way so there's literally no way of knowing a theoretical cost so it's safest to assume it's going to be $50 or more?

[Ruthalas]

The parent comment lists a specific reason why they'd turn directly the 'free' stuff. It requires more effort to then access the content they want to get to when they have to navigate around the cruft.

Whether that factors much into your personal value assessment or not, that is a valid downside to having a bunch of extra channels you don't intend to watch.

[lotsofpulp]

People don't turn down free stuff. It's just that they no longer value the content provided via TV channels at the price they are asking. The fundamental problem is content that used to be delivered via TV is no longer worth what it once was.

[s17n]

If that's the case, then the prices should go down for bundled content (and this does in fact appear to be what is happening).

A la carte makes no sense.

[baddox]

Except this article is about YouTube TV adding more channels and charging everyone more.

[s17n]

They're announcing these things at the same time for obvious reasons, but you can assume the prices would have gone up anyway.

[baddox]

That seems like an awful lot of assuming. Even if it's true that they needed to raise the price of their existing channel offering, and only added new channels to help justify the price increase, that still counts as bundling being used to increase the price.