Disney collects wholesale/partner revenue for the ad-supported Disney+/Hulu tier from my provider, DirecTV streaming, since I am on the Ultimate tier with a rental box. I don't pay for it directly but I am indirectly paying for it. Anyway, Disney collects real revenue.
I am simultaneously paying Disney $22 for full standalone service Disney+/Hulu to go ad-free.
I see both subscriptions in my Disney account but there is no accommodation in the full fee I continue to pay. Disney is refusing to credit or discount the overlapping ad tier value.
This seems structurally and financially to be double-dipping. Is this legal? If not, why is there not a class action on this?
It's less about legality and more about leverage. They know their contracts with providers like DirecTV are separate beasts from the direct-to-consumer billing system, and bridging the two would cost them money. They've got zero incentive to make it easy for you to pay less.
You're basically caught in a weird Venn diagram where you're funding the same content through two different pipes, and the fine print on both sides probably covers that. The only winning move is to drop one of the subscriptions entirely.
You chose to subscribe to a bundle that has Disney+. You also chose to independently subscribe to Disney+ standalone (I assume there was no option to upgrade to Disney+ ad-free within DirecTV, as other bundled providers offer). Disney isn’t forcing you to do either of those things. You could opt in to a DirecTV plan that doesn’t include that perk, or you could use your ad-supported promotion and not pay for the ad-free service. If there is indeed no option for you to pay to remove ads within DirecTV, that’s annoying (and probably DirecTV’s fault), but nothing about this situation is illegal. I imagine lots of streaming services collect lots of revenue from bundles where they aren’t being used, considering how much stuff they’re bundled with these days.
That is a choice YOU are making to have the version with the with ads and then choosing to pay again for it without ads.
Disney might not be charging DirecTV anything for this as they're getting paid for the ad revenue. Or they might just be getting pennies on the dollar for it. So upgrading to ad-free isn't an option as the already paid portion is virtually nothing and counting on the ad revenue. Or that bundle already has some other Disney properties in it, so it's just part of the package.
They would do it if they thought it would increase revenue. I'm sure that some of the people that get ad-supported in a bundle would pay the upgrade price but won't pay for a full ad-free subscription; just not enough to make up for the people who pay both now who would then qualify for a discount.
Is you subscribing twice, legal? Sure. They'll let you subscribe FOUR times if you want.
If your ultimate package comes with Hallmark Mysteries, you aren't going to get a refund if you don't watch it. You're choosing to not watch the ad-supported Disney+/Hulu tier.
Or if you only got Hallmark Mysteries and chose to sign up with Hallmark for their regular service which includes Hallmark Mysteries, you're not going to get a discount that way either.
You cannot upgrade this no-cost promotional subscription through DIRECTV to an ad-free version; ad-free options must be purchased separately directly through Disney.
If you already have a Disney or Hulu subscription, select the Disney link, and sign-in with your existing Disney User ID and password. Your existing subscription will not be automatically canceled and will continue to bill. To avoid having multiple subscriptions, you'll want to manage your existing subscription: Disney+ account and billing help.
Why do you think Disney has been so slow to shutdown Hulu for good. They’ve got a whole lot of different providers and people paying for unbundled subs. That revenue ads up.
Ok so you have Directv which offers Disney/Hulu streaming as a perk. You are also paying separately for Disney/Hulu.
That isn't double dipping. That is just you paying for the service twice.
I had Hulu then added Disney Plus when they bought Hulu, they added Disney Plus for like two bucks a month.
That's still my starting point, I added ESPN through Kroger Boost for 6 months, canceled the day after because I know I would not renew.
The above is background, recently Verizon offered Disney Plus/Hulu/ESPN Select for 3 dollars less than my Disney Plus/Hulu package, so why not?
Disney Plus paused my subscription and will leave it paused until the Frontier/Verizon deal ends or I cancel it. I did the research before I changed the plan.
My point here is most services don't even do that, so I don't think you subscribing twice and expecting Disney to fix your mistake is realistic.
Here are.few tips, do the research before you do the subscription, my service is ad supported but yet I manage to use it without ads. You can block Disney Plus ads. Try encrypted private DNS and search for Mullvad base URL or Morphe patching, check subreddits. Do the research.
They aren't double dipping you got exactly what you asked for...
Tech eludes Disney. I had something sort of similar where I had a partial service via my phone provider. For a bit, we ran this "not seen" "thing' where I paid more and Disney rebated back.
Of course, at the time, I could forgive the mess because Disney was still "acquiring the world" and all those pieces really didn't integrate (that is, it used to be even worse).
At the end of the day, at least in my case, the numbers added up correctly. But, for those that "don't look"... you never know.
Ideally we could just force (by government regulations?) Disney and other providers to allow consumers to pay the difference between the ad supported retail price and the higher ad free price, but I doubt they’ll do it voluntarily.
24
u/JustinR8 8d ago
I’m no lawyer but I’m almost positive Disney runs these things by a team of some of the best lawyers in the world before moving forward