Mitchell Hartman

But things have changed, he tells me today.

Which ones do I truly, truly need?

For Barnes, who has a young kid, Disney Plus is non-negotiable.

He's a big WWE fan.

He's got YouTube Live to cover sports and added on Hulu with his Disney bundle.

The subsidized streaming party is long over, says Ross Benesch, a senior analyst at eMarketer.

But, he says, consumers seem to be getting used to it.

In fact, households surveyed by market research firm Parks Associates actually increased the number of services they subscribed to over the last quarter, an average of six, says director of research Michael Goodman.

The amount households spend also increased in that period from $108 to $113 per month.

I think bundling has a lot to do with this because they're able to get more bang for their buck here, that they're able to get multiple services or

without having to pay for each one individually.

Consumers are also looking for value, often choosing lower-priced plans with ads, says John Giegengack with Hub Entertainment Research.

He says consumers also report feeling less bothered by ads than they were in the past.

Or maybe they're just resigned to them.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino for Marketplace.

For years, decades even, I watched peers and guys older than me go to the barber shop every other week.

It seemed like the norm.

But then COVID hit, and a lot of us started working from home.

This is Evan Harris.

He used to pay his barber $25 cash for those haircuts.