How HBO Max, Prime Video, and other streamers are trying to grow in a crowded market, including, sources say, via discounted bundles and deals with rivals
but channels adding other channels always just reminds me of what's not in the package I'm already buying https://www.wsj.com/... Michael J. Miraflor / @michaelmiraflor : Only 2 ways to make money in business: bundling and unbundling. A great content rebundling has started. If we measure this supercycle from when Netflix pivoted to streaming, it has taken ~15 years for the full 360 back to something that resembles cable. https://www.wsj.com/... @jstrauss : As ridesharing is regressing to taxis, streamers are regressing to cable. https://twitter.com/... Chairman Birb Bernanke / @bonecondor : the bundling -> unbundling -> bundling -> unbundling cycle continues https://twitter.com/... Jim OShaughnessy / @jposhaughnessy : Disruptively returning us to the early '80s...😜 The Great Rebundling is upon us. Consumers have complained for years about paying for cable channels they never watched. Now streaming bundles look surprisingly attractive. https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ @modestproposal1 : I have long thought Amazon was the most natural re-aggregator of video services. They have global scale, and they more than others would be willing to operate on the thin margins that will necessarily come with it for ancillary benefits. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Streaming's growth playbook has inverted. When Apple TV+ entered a market already split among Netflix, Roku, AT&T, Hulu, and Google in 2019, the strategy was standalone services competing on exclusive content. The WSJ now reports HBO Max, Prime Video, and rivals are pursuing discounted bundles and deals with each other — the same move Amazon tested in 2015 by bundling rival subscriptions into Prime Instant Video that never became the industry default.
What changed is saturation: with every major studio running its own service, subscriber acquisition has stalled, and the industry is reaching for the two levers left — packaging and advertising. The Apple–Paramount bundle talks that followed show the rival-to-rival deal is no longer fringe; it's the template.
First-order effects
- HBO Max, Prime Video, and their rivals accept lower per-subscriber revenue in exchange for reach, converting direct competitors into distribution partners overnight.
Second-order effects
- Pricing power shifts toward whoever controls the bundle interface — Amazon's channels model showed the packager takes a revenue share, so services that refuse to bundle risk being excluded from the cheapest way in.
Third-order effects
- If bundling plus ad tiers becomes the norm — Antenna found 56% of new subscribers chose ad-supported plans in Q1 2024 — streaming re-aggregates into something resembling cable, and consolidation pressure follows, as Netflix's reported pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery already signals.
The trend: Streaming is reversing its unbundling cycle back toward cable-style aggregation, with bundles and rival deals replacing exclusive-content arms races as the growth engine.