Twenty percent and the cable trap repeating
Apple just raised prices on Apple One by up to 20 percent. On Apple TV+ specifically by even more, and the industry is reading this as either dominance or desperation depending on which metric they prefer to believe. What it actually is: a textbook repeat of cable television's bundling strategy from the 1990s and 2000s. Means we already know how this ends.
The pattern is mechanical. You offer a cheap bundle to build installed base fast — lock in millions before competitors can establish themselves. The psychological switching cost matters more than the price tag. Once you own the habit, you own the hostage.
What cable proved is that the moment you've built an installed base large enough, the math flips entirely. Comcast and DirecTV spent a decade raising prices annually on their bundles after the initial subscriber surge. They moved from 'everyone can afford this' to 'everyone is locked in, so we can raise this.' By 2015, they'd squeezed the bundle past the point where individual services cost less. Customers did the math, cut the cord, and suddenly that captive audience was gone.
Apple is at the inflection point now. Streaming competitors have matured. Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and Max are no longer emerging threats — they're established services with known costs. Switching is no longer a leap into the unknown. A subscriber can now do what Comcast customers did: calculate whether Apple One's $34. 95 monthly premium actually saves them money against taking à la carte what they actually watch. Usually it doesn't.
What cable proved is that the moment you've built an installed base large enough, the math flips entirely.
”The bundling model works exactly once in any medium. On the way up, when consumers need the permission structure to try new things. On the way down, it's just expensive. Apple's price increases aren't a sign of strength extracting more value from a locked-in base. They're the moment the cable companies reached for the same lever they'd already pulled too hard. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does charge the same price twice and wonder why the customer disappears.
