"More competition leads to higher prices"? Really?

Cable companies and streaming services are middle men. Their job is to get the content for the least amount possible and then sell it for the maximum amount possible.

Yes, the content providers are the only source of their particular product, as are most companies that produce a product. Apple is ultimately the only source of an iPhone; but you can choose an alternative, get a Droid. You can choose to subscribe to HBO, and not Showtime. You can choose to pay for the cable package that includes every channel in existence, or you can choose a Sling package for less than a quarter of the price. You decide; you're the consumer.

It's not an auction. Only one bidder gets the piece of art in an auction; the cable companies and streaming services can all get access to the content, not just one. And they will do so as long as they believe their viewers will pay more than what they are paying the content providers.

The viewer drives down the price. The more options there are as far as bundling and packages, the better bc there will be cheap packages (which is the trend) and expensive ones. Each viewer pays for what they want. The more content providers that offer their content directly to the viewer without a subscription, the better. That is another trend; albeit, a slow one bc it's mainly premium channels that have done that (I would argue that Amazon shows, Netflix shows, Hulu shows, etc are also in this category). Once a major cable network (namely, ESPN, or AMC, or FX) breaks away and decides to offer its content directly to the viewer for a certain price, others will begin to follow suit.

If you believe more competition leads to higher prices, then you must want only one cable company for the entire country (less competition, lower prices, right?). Sounds disastrous.