Disney+ loses 300,000 North American subscribers with another price hike coming

The Disney+ streaming platform lost 300,000 subscribers in the U.S. and Canada last quarter, just as it plans to hike prices yet again and with a stream of big-budget flops coming from theaters in the near future. The platform currently has 46 million domestic subscribers, compared to Netflix's 76 million.

The price of ad-free streaming will go to $13.99 in October, effectively double its $6.99 cost when the platform debuted four years ago. A Disney+ and Hulu streaming-only bundle will be $19.99 with no ads, and the trio bundle with ESPN+ will cost $24.99.

The with-ads price for Disney+ alone will still be $7.99 with ads.

Looking at the worldwide picture, the platform increased its subscribers by 800,000 outside of India's market. It has attempted to cut costs by removing some content and canceling some of its original programming, like the National Treasure TV series and a reboot of Willow.

A portion of Disney's traditional audience has been turned off by content that espouses liberal values including LGBT and anti-racist content targeted to children at ages parents deem inappropriate.

Disney's war with the state of Florida over an education bill prohibiting teachers from teaching about sexuality until at least 3rd grade has also earned it some detractors. A domestic drop of .65% should not be that big a deal, but Disney really expected to be growing, not shrinking, at this point in its existence.