This was always going to happen. Producing content is not cheap. Investors in public companies want to see a certain level of profit every reporting period. Cable put so many channels in the tiers because at that price level because there would be enough channels in it that a customer at that price point want that they would get sales for that, even though basically nobody wanted all of those channels. Everyone would see some channels they didn’t want, and that would vary from person-to-person, but there was enough they wanted that it didn’t matter.

On the back end, the cable networks were getting money from each subscriber the cable companies had, whether those subscribers wanted those channels or not. They weren’t actually making much money per subscriber, but there were so many subscribers that it worked out. Most channels were under $1 per person, typically in the 25-75¢ range. Only ESPN had the clout to command serious money, nearing $5 per subscriber for a package that often included 4 or 5 channels.

There are a lot of those channels where people would say they’d be happy to pay 50¢ or even $1 a month in building their own package. The problem is those numbers only work when everyone pays. If a channel was on cable companies with 50 million customers that got them 50¢/month each, that’s $25 million/month. If that channel was a streaming service with 1 million customers who actually want their content they’d have to charge $25/month for the same revenue.

The only advantage customers have in this streaming landscape is no one is making them subscribe to all the services and there usually are no contracts, so consumers could change who they subscribe to every month. If you’re only watching a couple shows on one or two services you can save money. But it seems like many people don’t do that.