Open your streaming app tonight and you’ll face a familiar dilemma. Netflix has the new thriller everyone’s talking about. Prime Video hosts that critically acclaimed series you bookmarked months ago. Disney+ just dropped a blockbuster. Cancelling any one of them feels risky—what if you miss out? This anxiety is often labelled subscription fatigue: too many platforms, too many bills, and too little time. But a new cross-cultural study challenges this popular narrative. What if people aren’t exhausted by subscriptions at all? What if they’re deliberately curating portfolios of platforms—just like investors build portfolios of assets?
That is the provocative idea at the heart of a recent study on multihoming behavior—the practice of maintaining multiple OTT (over-the-top) streaming subscriptions at the same time. By comparing users in India and Australia, the research reveals that people don’t juggle platforms randomly or reluctantly. Instead, they do so strategically, guided by deeply cultural ideas of value, identity, and experience.
What is Subscription Fatigue? Subscription fatigue is the stress of managing many paid services when costs, choices, and effort outweigh the value users feel they receive.
Why We Multihome in the First Place
Streaming platforms exploded after 2020. With more than a billion subscriptions globally and rising costs, one might expect users to simplify their choices. Yet multihoming remains widespread. In some markets, more than a quarter of users subscribe to two or more services simultaneously.
Traditional explanations focus on obvious factors: exclusive content, pricing, ease of use, or recommendation algorithms. While these matter, they fail to capture a more complex reality. Users don’t evaluate platforms in isolation—they evaluate them together.
This study reframes multihoming as a post-adoption behavior, not a one-time decision. The key question is not “Why did you sign up?” but “Why do you keep multiple subscriptions even when it feels overwhelming?”
To answer that, the researchers turned to two powerful lenses: Consumption Value Theory and Complexity Theory.
Values, Not Features, Drive Our Choices
Consumption Value Theory argues that people choose products based on multiple types of value—not just utility or price. In the OTT context, four values stand out:
- Functional value: content variety, personalization, recommendation systems
- Social value: what friends, family, and peers are watching and discussing
- Experiential value: enjoyment, immersion, binge-worthiness
- Epistemic value: curiosity, novelty, and the thrill of discovery
Rather than treating these values as independent, the study shows they work together in combinations. Different blends of values can lead to the same outcome: the decision to multihome. This is where Complexity Theory comes in. Human behavior isn’t linear. There is no single “best” reason people maintain multiple subscriptions. Instead, there are multiple pathways—different value combinations that all make sense within specific cultural contexts.
Mining Real Voices: What Viewers Actually Say
To ground the research in real user experience, the study began with an exploratory analysis of over 7,300 IMDb reviews of popular shows and films watched in India and Australia. Using machine learning (topic modeling), the researchers extracted recurring themes from what viewers actually talked about: being “hooked,” discovering something “fresh,” following “buzz,” or praising affordability.
These organic insights shaped a large cross-cultural survey of more than 700 active multihoming users, which was then analyzed using a method designed to uncover patterns rather than averages. The result? A striking cultural contrast.
India: Streaming as a Social Portfolio
In India, multihoming is best understood as social portfolio management.
Indian users tend to maintain multiple subscriptions to stay connected—to conversations, families, peer groups, and shared cultural moments. Social influence appears in nearly every successful pathway to multihoming. What others recommend, discuss, or validate matters deeply.Here, platforms are not just entertainment providers; they are social connectors. A service doesn’t need the most advanced technology or the richest catalog if it is socially endorsed. In some cases, even limited functionality is forgiven when a platform carries social approval. Affordability also plays a crucial role. Users balance cost with collective value, often choosing platforms that offer “good enough” experiences at acceptable prices. Curiosity and enjoyment reinforce this logic, helping users justify keeping several subscriptions as part of a socially meaningful bundle. In this context, subscription fatigue is less about money and more about portfolio misfit—when platforms no longer align with social circles or shared interests.
Australia: Curating an Experience Portfolio
Australia tells a different story. Here, multihoming resembles experience portfolio curation. Users are less driven by what others are watching and more by how platforms serve their preferences. Personalization, immersive experiences, novelty, and discovery dominate. Australian users want platforms that adapt to them—smart recommendations, engaging interfaces, and content that feels fresh. Even price becomes negotiable. In some cases, users continue multihoming even when monetary value is low, as long as experiential and epistemic value remain high. Social influence plays a secondary role. It can enhance the experience, but it rarely anchors it. Multihoming here is about maximizing pleasure, variety, and control—less about belonging, more about exploration.
Same Outcome, Different Paths
One of the study’s most important insights is equifinality: multiple combinations of values can lead to the same behavior. In India, eight different value configurations lead to high multihoming intention. In Australia, only four emerge—suggesting that socially complex environments allow for more behavioral flexibility, while mature individualist markets demand tighter value alignment.
Crucially, the absence of one value does not necessarily prevent multihoming. Strong social value can compensate for weaker functionality in India. Rich experiences can compensate for higher prices in Australia. This challenges the idea that platforms must “win” on every dimension. What matters is fitting into the right portfolio.
Rethinking Subscription Fatigue
The study offers a powerful reframing: subscription fatigue is not about having too many subscriptions—it’s about having the wrong mix. When platforms fail to contribute meaningfully to a user’s social or experiential portfolio, they feel expendable. Fatigue sets in not because of quantity, but because of misalignment. This insight has major implications for streaming platforms. Competing on price or content alone is no longer enough. Platforms must understand the cultural logic of how users assemble their portfolios—and decide whether they want to be a social anchor, an experiential playground, or a curiosity engine.
The Bigger Picture
Beyond streaming, this research speaks to a broader truth about digital life. As platforms multiply, users don’t simplify—they strategize. They assemble ecosystems of services that reflect who they are, who they belong to, and what they seek. In India, multihoming keeps people socially connected. In Australia, it keeps life interesting. In both cases, it is not a symptom of confusion—but of choice. So the next time you hesitate before cancelling a subscription, ask yourself: is it fatigue—or is it portfolio strategy?
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