As one era of streaming ends, another begins: Chart of the Week

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For a brief and wonderful period of time, the latest and greatest consumer services the tech economy had to offer were cheap, with generous subsidies from the companies themselves.

Jeff Bezos paid your shipping costs. Several venture capital benefactors chipped in to pay for his travel, short-term rentals and food deliveries.

Others helped pay the bill for TV, movies and music. All of this now streamed directly to your device(s).

You made a contribution, of course, but in the low interest rate environment of easy money in the 2010s, Big Tech helped you pay.

But, as our Chart of the Week shows, this era could not be over.

This week, consumers were hit with more price hikes from Max and Spotify, which turned into what appears to be a never-ending cycle of price increases. Recently, Comcast announced Peacock price increases that coincide with the Paris Olympics.

Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast, of course, aren’t exactly Big Tech names synonymous with losing money to gain market share. But while you were getting agreement on all your new digitally enabled habits, these companies were scrambling to copy the same playbook.

The biggest lesson they copied was losing money. And the rush to raise prices today shows them running in the other direction.

This next development in the industry also brings another problem: ads. The second step on the fork in potential profitability.

As Alexandra Canal notes, streamers are increasingly interested in advertising-level platforms and therefore encourage participation away from their premium offerings (read: ad-free, another “innovation” from a bygone era), despite their higher prices.

Now, cord-cutters who haven’t seen an ad in years will finally learn about Buffalo Wild Wings’ BOGO Thursday boneless wings and McDonald’s $5 meal.

And just as enthusiasm for the paradigm shift helped create cheap subscriptions for everyone more than a decade ago, the ad-supported streaming model has the potential to generate a similar level of sentiment. Sentiment analysts note could cause ad tier subscription prices to decline if users’ eyeballs become more valuable than the literal dollars they bring to the table.

As Bank of America wrote in a note to clients on Thursday, despite headwinds and years of industry weakness, there is “cautious optimism” in the short term and “disruption” in the long term as the potential of purchases on the platform and innovation in the ad format excites executives and investors.

The story continues

If this works, perhaps these companies can finally produce good content again.

Until then, $16.99 will get you the entire Sopranos catalog.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a senior editor at Yahoo Finance and runs newsletters. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.

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