The use of “+” to name on-demand services was fine when streaming was new but has become a cliché and a minus
and was surprised to earn $30,000 for it.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Shira Ovide / @shiraovide : Guys, @tiffkhsu wrote about the PLUS SIGN taking over streaming and it is glorious. “It's not that ‘plus’ is the best name....It's the one that survives, because everything else is eviscerated.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Carl Quintanilla / @carlquintanilla : Apple TV+ Disney + Paramount + Discovery + 60 Minutes + (via @nytimes @tiffkhsu) 🔥 https://www.nytimes.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Tiffany Hsu's piece lands at the tail end of a naming arms race that began when big studios launched their own exclusive platforms and each needed a suffix to signal 'more than TV': Apple TV+, Disney+, Paramount+, Discovery+. The plus sign was shorthand for an on-demand upgrade over cable — which is exactly why it stopped working once every service adopted it.
The cliché now sits awkwardly against where the market has gone: a top-services basket costing more than average cable per FT's pricing analysis, rising cancellation rates, and a pivot toward cheaper ad tiers. When the product category is commoditizing, a shared naming convention is a branding liability rather than a signal of novelty.
First-order effects
- Streaming services carrying the '+' suffix — Apple TV+, Disney+, Paramount+, Discovery+ — now compete in a market where their names actively obscure rather than distinguish their offerings, forcing marketing spend to do work the brand name no longer does.
Second-order effects
- As services chase subscribers through price cuts and ad-supported tiers amid elevated churn, expect rebrands and bundling moves that de-emphasize the standalone '+' identity — the name matters less than whether the service survives inside someone else's package.
Third-order effects
- If consolidation continues, individual service brands fade in importance relative to distribution platforms and bundles, and naming conventions like the plus sign become relics of the 2020-era land grab when every studio needed its own walled garden.
The trend: Streaming is shifting from a differentiation race — where every studio branded its own exclusive platform — toward a consolidation phase where generic naming signals commoditization.