Disney announced a new streaming bundle last week: Disney+, Hulu, and Max together for $49.99 per month. The press release used words like “value” and “convenience” and “comprehensive entertainment solution.” What it didn’t mention is that this is basically cable television with a different billing system.

We spent the last decade celebrating how streaming killed cable. We praised the freedom to subscribe only to services we wanted, to pay for content rather than bundles of channels, to watch on our schedule instead of the network’s. Now we’re enthusiastically rebuilding the same system with slightly different branding.

How We Got Here

The original promise of streaming was simple: pay for what you watch. Want HBO’s prestige dramas? Subscribe to HBO Now for $15. Want Netflix’s original content? Subscribe to Netflix. Want neither? Pay for neither. You were in control.

This worked brillifully when there were two or three major services. Most people had Netflix and maybe one other subscription. The monthly cost was reasonable, the content was abundant, and the user experience was genuinely better than cable’s rigid schedules and bloated channel packages.

Then every media company decided they needed their own streaming service. Disney pulled their content from Netflix to launch Disney+. NBCUniversal created Peacock. Paramount launched Paramount+. Warner Bros. Discovery went through three brand iterations before settling on Max. Apple got in the game. So did Amazon, though they’d been around longer.

The fragmentation was immediate and obvious. To watch everything you wanted, you needed six or seven subscriptions. Your monthly cost approached or exceeded what you’d been paying for cable. And instead of flipping through a guide, you were searching across multiple apps to remember where you’d started that show.

The Bundle Solution

The industry’s solution was inevitable: bundles. Disney offers Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ together at a discount. Warner Bros. Discovery now bundles Max with Discovery+. Amazon includes Prime Video with Prime membership. And now we have cross-company bundles like the Disney-Hulu-Max package.

The pitch is convenience and savings. Instead of managing multiple subscriptions, you get several services for one price. The bundle costs less than subscribing to each service individually. You have access to more content in one place.

Sound familiar? It’s the exact pitch cable companies made. Subscribe to our bundle and get hundreds of channels for one monthly price! Sure, you only watch 15 of those channels, but look at all the value you’re getting! Don’t worry about which channel has which show—we have them all!

What We’re Actually Buying

Let’s be honest about what these bundles represent. You’re paying for content you don’t want to subsidize content you do want. The Disney-Hulu-Max bundle includes three services, but most people primarily use one or two. You’re paying $50 for access to everything, even though you’d probably be satisfied with $30 worth of actual viewing.

The pricing is deliberately constructed to make the bundle feel like a deal. Max alone is $16. Hulu is $18. Disney+ is $14. Add those up and you get $48, so paying $50 for all three seems like a bargain. But notice how those individual prices have crept up significantly from their launch prices. Disney+ started at $7. The individual prices are inflated specifically to make the bundle attractive.

You’re also locked into services you might otherwise cancel. With individual subscriptions, you could rotate—subscribe to Max for a few months to watch their new shows, cancel, switch to another service. The bundle removes that flexibility. You’re paying for all of them continuously, whether you’re actively watching or not.

The Content Problem

The bundling strategy also changes content creation incentives in problematic ways. When services competed independently, they needed distinctive content to attract subscribers. HBO made prestige dramas because that was their brand. Netflix invested in diverse original content because they needed reasons for people to subscribe.

With bundles, the strategy shifts to total volume. You need enough content across all your services to justify the bundle price and prevent people from canceling. Quality matters less than quantity. Why invest $100 million in one prestigious show when you can make ten mediocre shows that fill the content library?

We’re already seeing this play out. The number of streaming originals has exploded, but the hit rate has plummeted. Services are canceling shows after one season because they don’t generate enough viewing hours to justify renewal costs. The focus is on content that keeps people passively subscribed, not content that’s actually exceptional.

The Interface Nightmare

From a user experience perspective, bundles create their own problems. The Disney-Hulu-Max bundle doesn’t give you one unified interface—you still have three separate apps with three separate recommendation algorithms and three separate continue watching lists.

Want to watch something tonight but don’t know what? You need to check all three apps. Trying to remember where you were in that show you started last week? Better hope you remember which service it was on. Looking for a specific movie? Good luck guessing which service has the streaming rights this month.

Cable had one interface. It was terrible, but it was consistent. The streaming bundle gives you multiple terrible interfaces that don’t talk to each other. It’s the worst of both worlds.

The Price Trajectory

Here’s what worries me most: the prices only go one direction. That $50 bundle will be $55 next year, then $60, then $65. Each increase will come with an explanation about rising content costs and the value you’re receiving. The individual service prices will increase proportionally to maintain the bundle discount.

Within a few years, we’ll be paying $70-80 for streaming bundles while simultaneously being told we’re getting a great deal. We’ll have recreated the exact pricing structure of cable, except now we’re streaming instead of receiving a signal through a coax cable.

And just like cable, there will be tiers. The $50 bundle will be ad-supported. Want no ads? That’s $70. Want 4K streaming? Add another $10. Want to stream on more than two devices simultaneously? Premium tier at $90. We’re already seeing this with individual services; bundles will follow the same pattern.

The Alternative Nobody Wants to Discuss

The uncomfortable truth is that there might not be a sustainable middle ground. Having dozens of competing streaming services was chaotic and expensive for consumers. Consolidating into bundles recreates cable. The alternative—fewer services with more content each, funded by higher subscription prices or more aggressive advertising—might be the only economically viable model.

Content production is expensive. Global distribution platforms are expensive. Maintaining apps across dozens of devices is expensive. Someone has to pay for all of this, and that someone is us. Whether we pay through fragmented subscriptions, bundled subscriptions, watching ads, or some combination of all three, the cost is roughly the same.

The difference between streaming and cable wasn’t really about cost—it was about control and convenience. We could watch what we wanted when we wanted. We could subscribe and unsubscribe freely. The content was on-demand rather than scheduled.

Bundles erode the control aspect while maintaining the convenience. You still get on-demand viewing, but you lose the ability to pay for only what you watch. We’re trading one benefit for the other, and the industry is betting we’ll accept it because the alternative—managing seven separate subscriptions—is too annoying.

Where This Ends

My guess is we end up with three or four major bundles that collectively have most content worth watching. Disney-Hulu-Max is one. Netflix remains standalone but increasingly expensive. Amazon Prime Video continues as part of Prime. Maybe Apple builds out a bundle with Apple TV+, Apple Music, and other services.

Between those bundles, you’ll have access to most mainstream content for $100-150 per month. Which, coincidentally, is about what cable cost. We’ll have come full circle, just with better apps and no installation appointments.

The independent services—the Criterions and Shudders and niche offerings—will remain separate, serving specific audiences willing to pay à la carte. But for the median consumer, streaming will have transformed back into bundled television.

And we’ll accept it, because the truth is most people don’t want to manage their entertainment subscriptions. They just want to press play and watch something. If bundles make that easier, even at cable prices, most people will pay it.

The revolution wasn’t about cost or control—it was about convenience. And convenience, it turns out, looks a lot like cable with better technology. We’ve just been recreating what we knew all along with different corporate logos and app icons.

Welcome back to bundled television. Please enjoy your comprehensive entertainment solution.