Lawsuit: AT&T’s DirecTV Now is a flop and AT&T lied to investors about it
AT&T failed to disclose DirecTV Now subscriber losses, class action claims.
My Analysis at no charge to AT&T..... I see 4 unforced errors for The executive suit...
1- So AT&T told the government buying Time Warner would lower prices. AT&T told investors DirecTV now was going to increase the total number of video subscribers. In reality, AT&T raised prices and bled subscribers. What do you call a person who tells a lot of lies?
This explains selling the Apple TV 4k (at that time a ~$180 piece of hardware) for $105. I know several people that only bought a subscription multiple times in order to get that Appletv 4k for so cheap with no intention of using Direct TV Now.
2- At the time I wondered how they could afford it and why they'd do such a stupid promotion (nobody was staying for DirectTv Now, just buying AppleTV 4k's) but if it was used to inflate their subscription numbers the deal makes sense.
3- I used DirecTV Now for about a year only because I got promotions that dropped the price to near $0. It was barely good enough to keep for free, and I dropped it when my promotions ended.
The entire time I was subscribed, AT&T was boasting about having the fastest growing live TV streaming service. Of course they signed people up by basically giving it away, but what was the plan when the promotions ran out? Remove a few channels and charge people more to offset the customers leaving in droves? Great plan guys!
I was a happy enough Direct TV (not Now) member for like 15 years. Excellent customer service, frequent equipment upgrades, new features, etc. I was spending a fair chunk (close to $100/month for just the sat service), but I was subscribed to ALL the movie channels, had a bunch of sports and other stuff.
4- Then AT&T took over, and slowly, quietly, the price went up, and up and up, until I suddenly found I was paying about $200/month. I looked at that, and said "I now have a fiber connection, I'm going cordcutting".