Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger speaks during the 70th anniversary celebrations of Disneyland Resort on July 17, 2025, in Anaheim, California (Getty Images)

Disney+ has gone from one of the cheapest to one of the most expensive streaming services

Since Disney+ launched in 2019, its price has gone up 172%. A combined Disney+ and Hulu app paves the way for future price increases.

Rani Molla

9/24/25 11:55AM

When Disney launched its streaming service Disney+ for $6.99 a month in 2019, it was cheaper than many other services out there.

Starting in October, it will be 172% more expensive than it was six years ago.

Back then, Netflix had just raised its price to $8.99 per month for its basic service. HBO’s streaming service, then called HBO Now, cost $14.99. Apple TV+, which also launched in 2019, cost $4.99 but also had a tiny content library consisting of about eight originals. Hulu, which is owned by Disney and unlike the others had an ad-supported tier at the time, had recently lowered its ad tier to $5.99 per month while its ad-free tier was $11.99.

In the intervening years, these streaming services repeatedly raised their prices and ad-supported tiers became commonplace.

With Disney’s latest price hike — its fourth in four years — slated to go into effect in October, Disney+ and Hulu are now some of the most expensive streaming services. Disney raised the prices of its Disney+ and Hulu bundles as well, which cost only $1 more than a single subscription. On the company’s latest earnings call, it announced it would merge Disney+ and Hulu into a single app next year.

“I imagine down the road, it may give us some price elasticity as well that we haven’t had before,” CEO Bob Iger said on the call, suggesting the cost of Disney+ will likely continue to grow.

“You’re going to end up with a far better consumer experience when those apps are combined, by combining all of the program assets of both apps, both current apps, and obviously, with an improved consumer experience comes the ability to lower churn, which is obviously something that we’re very, very focused on and committed to doing,” Iger said.

Jon Keegan3/27/26

Judge blocks Pentagon’s move to blacklist Anthropic

A federal judge in Northern California has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk.

The ruling temporarily prevents the Defense Department from restricting the AI company’s access to federal contracts amid a dispute over its refusal to allow certain military and surveillance uses of its technology. The designation could also have shifted lucrative government work toward competitors, including OpenAI.

Earlier this month, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, sued 17 federal agencies and their heads, alleging the government exceeded its statutory authority.

Rani Molla3/27/26

Report: SpaceX’s record IPO may grant preferential access to retail investors and Tesla shareholders

SpaceX’s impending IPO could raise $40 billion to $80 billion and rank as the largest ever — as well as one of the most unconventional.

The Wall Street Journal reports several ways CEO Elon Musk is considering breaking with IPO norms:

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Exclusive | The SpaceX IPO Will Be Just as Unconventional as Musk Himself

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Rani Molla3/26/26

Tesla released estimates for Q1 deliveries and they’re lower than analysts expected

Ahead of first-quarter earnings next month, Tesla released its own company-compiled Wall Street consensus estimate for deliveries: 365,645 vehicles. While that’s lower than the 382,000 FactSet consensus estimate, it represents a nearly 9% jump from Q1 2025, when Tesla sold 336,681 vehicles.

Tesla started releasing its own consensus estimates to the public — not just institutional investors — for the first time in Q4 2025. The move was seen as a way to temper investor expectations, as other estimates were too high. Last quarter, Tesla’s compilation was closer to actual numbers, which fell 16% year over year.

The market-implied odds from event contracts suggest 64% of traders think Tesla’s Q1 deliveries will be more than 350,000, 44% think it will be higher than 360,000, and just 21% have it at higher than 370,000.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

The toughest AI benchmark just got a whole lot tougher

ARC-AGI-3 is the latest version of a clever benchmark that challenges AI models to solve mini video games with no written instructions.

Jon Keegan3/26/26

Rani Molla3/26/26

The US leads the world in robotaxi deployments

Every day it seems another robotaxi launches somewhere in the world. But most of them are in the US.

Of the 171 active robotaxi deployments globally, 69 — or 40% — are in the US, according to a new report from the Bank of America Institute. China, the next largest market, accounts for 24% of deployments.

Most of those deployments are still in testing or early commercial stages. Only 10 US cities currently have fully commercial robotaxi operations, defined as services that operate on public roads, carry paying passengers, run fully driverless without a safety driver, and function all day in any weather.

For now, that effectively refers to Alphabet’s Waymo, which operates commercially in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, and the San Francisco Bay Area. That definition excludes competitors like Tesla, whose Robotaxi service uses safety monitors, and Amazon’s Zoox, which has yet to charge customers for rides.