I've written a few times that, while the current crop of streaming services are nice and are a decent value, I think they've still got the wrong idea: the bundle. It's good that the pricing is transparent, the contracts are gone, and the provider is separate from the service that brings it to us, but phase two is going to have to break down the channel bundles. Otherwise, one of two things will happen... either the cost of streaming services as they add channels will gradually approach the cost of just getting cable, or the bundles will "churn" as channels are added and dropped so the service can maintain a particular price point.

So IMO, the answer is 'not very sustainable'.

It's just such an odd industry, the way it's all structured. The expensive channels (ESPN) need the bundle because they don't want to look so expensive (and expendable), so they want other channels to come along with them to average out the cost in the consumer's mind. The cheap channels also need the bundle, because they would rather tag along with ESPN and get 50 cents each from ten million subscribers (plus more exposure and ad revenue) than get $2 each from one million subscribers if they were standalone.

On the bright side (at least I think it's the bright side), I think the ESPN and live sports bubble is on the verge of bursting. The broadcast rights deals are so astronomical, and combined with shrinking subscriber bases I think will put a lot of pressure on them to make some changes. They may think they can just keep charging more and more and people will pay, but that just seems foolish considering their subscriber numbers are already shrinking fast due to high prices. They're going to have to either start offering some reasonably priced streaming packages direct to consumers, or just let the bubble burst and let Disney bail them out and start over with a less aggressive approach than buy-all-the-rights. But the problem with THAT is the leagues are now accustomed to raising rates faster than healthcare, so the product may suffer a bit. That wouldn't be necessarily bad, IMO, I'd like to see sports get back to their essence: competition, rather than spectacle.

That's enough rambling, I guess.