-There are many substitutes available for paid streaming services.
-There are free-streaming services, illegal streaming websites and even advertisement(ad)-supported streaming services.
-When there is an increase in the price of a subscription for paid streaming services, people will tend to look for substitutes as they cannot afford / do not want to pay a higher price.
-For example, if the subscription fee for Hulu increases, viewers can switch to other free ad supported streaming app called Peacock to view their movies, shows and even original content . Likewise, If Netflix’s subscription fee increases, people can find other platforms like Crackle to use and watch movies, tv shows (old and new) and even original content.
-From this I can infer that when the price of paid streaming services increases,  the demand for ad-supported streaming services will increase.

2. Money Income

-As viewers' income changes, the demand for the paid streaming services will also change.
-When viewers’ income increases, demand for paid streaming services also increases as more people can now afford to pay for apps and watch shows.
-When viewers' income increases, demand for paid streaming services decreases.
-This is because when people get paid less , they cannot afford leisure activities or cut down unnecessary costs. Watching shoes via a paid streaming app can be seen as unnecessary for some people and hence they might unsubscribe from the service.

3. Taste and Preference
-A change in viewer tastes or preferences will affect the demand for paid streaming services.
-With the recent Coronavirus Pandemic, people study and work from home.
-They cannot go out watch movies with their families hence they resort to watching them at home.
- Movies cannot be released as well so they publish them in paid apps like Amazon Prime Video
-Therefore more people are willing to pay for the paid streaming services which causes demand for it to increase as well.

- In a streaming service, there are 2 determinants; proportion of income and availability of substitutes. 

Proportion of income:
- Demand is price elastic the higher the proportion of income spent on the service.
- For the rich, change in price of a streaming service will not affect them heavily as it does not take up much of their income.
- For the lower income, streaming services are price elastic to the lower income as the change in price might affect their decision in continuing their subscription to their service. Since the change in price of the service would take up a bigger portion of their income, the demand for streaming services would be price elastic.

Availability of Substitutes:
- The more substitutes available, the higher the price elasticity of demand
- When the price of one streaming platform increases, the demand for that platform will naturally decrease as consumers are able to look for other streaming platforms that can substitute it. 
- Streaming services are price elastic as they can be substituted any time.

- There has been an increasing number of paid streaming services around the world entering the tv network entertainment industry.
- For example, there are a variety of apps such as Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and etc that provide different types of content, so users are able to switch around the paid streaming services 
- The paid streaming services are able to provide more films and people will be more willing to subscribe to them.
- Therefore, the supply of paid streaming services will increase due to the influx in the number of sellers.

2. Factor / Resource price 

- As the scale of the tv network entertainment industry expands, more film-makers will use this chance to charge higher prices when the paid streaming services attempts to obtain films from them.

- For example, producers know that there is a lot of paid streaming services in the industry competing for the latest films or shows, so they would charge them at a higher price. This will then incur more expenses for the paid streaming services as licensing would be at a higher cost.
- Then it will lead to a decrease in supply, as production cost increases.

- Government introduced the Job Support Scheme(JSS), a scheme which provides wage support for employers to retain their local employees. 
- Government co-funds a proportion of the first $4,600 of gross monthly wages to every employee up to March 2021, allowing many companies to refrain from retrenchment 
- As a result, the unemployment rate has improved to 2.6% in the third quarter (September) of 2021.

- Singapore's annual inflation rate increased to 3.8 percent in November 2021 from 3.2 percent in October, beating market expectations of 3.35 percent and marking the highest level since February 2013.

- As the economy improves and recovers, there is more domestic demand for products and services, which means that prices have also gone up.

- With the on-going pandemic, the paid-streaming services has had an increase in the general price trends due to the demand-pull situation contributing to the increased inflation rate in singapore.

-The coronavirus crisis has benefited the paid streaming services industry. In Singapore with the safety measures like circuit breakers , home-based learning and work-from-home being implemented, Singaporeans have picked up the habit of binge-watch series, and companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ have seen a significant increase in video and audio consumption.

- As more Singaporeans are confined to their homes, companies/sellers  have used this opportunity to increase their prices, in other words : increase subscription fees that customers pay monthly or yearly , depending on their payment plan. 

-One such example would be Netflix. Netflix Singapore increased their prices by $1-$2. Which means that the Basic plan will increase by $1 from $11.98 to $12.98. Standard plan will increase by $1.50 from $15.98 to $17.48 .Premium plan will have the largest increase by $2 from $19.98 to $21.98.

- With the increasing inflation rate, goods and services prices have and will continue to rise tremendously. During these times we must not forget about the low-income families who cannot afford these services. Hence, to keep prices from going out of control, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has tightened monetary policy by steepening the slope of its policy band for the country's trade-weighted exchange rate, allowing the Singapore dollar to strengthen and making imports cheaper.This move is to mitigate imported inflation and temper domestic cost, to ensure price stability.

-The real GDP shrank by 5.4% in 2020, reversing the 1.3% gain of the previous year. 
-The Singapore economy contracted by 2.4% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2020, a decrease from 5.8% shrinkage in the previous quarter. 

-Except for manufacturing, finance & insurance, information & communications, and wholesale commerce, all industries shrank during the quarter.

-Real GDP grew by 7.1% on a year-on-year basis in the third quarter of 2021. 
-Manufacturing, banking and insurance, and construction were the industries that contributed the most to GDP growth.

-GDP per capita (current US$) is $61,173.90 in 2019

-GDP per capita (current US$) is $58,056.80 in 2020

-GDP per capita (current US$) is expected to reach $59,500.00 in 2021

-The streaming service industry continues to grow despite the Covid-19 outbreak. The majority of the streaming platforms have seen huge traffic increases ever since the pandemic. According to the study, streaming websites have an average increase of 35% from February to March 2020. 

-The increase in demand is caused by the precautionary measures that are implemented during the pandemic such as Work From Home (WFH) and circuit breaker. 

-Some examples include HBO Go Asia that has had the biggest growth since the COVID-19 outbreak, with a 94.4% rise in visits from February to March 2020. MeWatch came in second with a 49.64% increase, and Netflix came in third with a 40% increase. 

Economic growth 

-In 2019, Singapore's economy increased by 0.7% year on year. According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry's (MTI) flash estimates released on Thursday (2 Jan 2020). This was more than the 0.6% rise expected by Bloomberg experts.

-In 2020, the economy in Singapore shrank less than forecast. According to the MTI advanced projections released on Monday, GDP decreased by 5.8% for the entire year 2020 due to the disruption of economic operations induced by the coronavirus epidemic (Jan 4 2021).

-MTI's earlier expectation of a 6.5% to 6% decline in November was revised upwards, and the full-year growth is significantly lower than its previous estimate of a 7% to 5% reduction.

-In 2021, the economy is predicted to grow at a rate of 4.0 to 6.0%. According to the latest figures from the Economic Survey, the economy grew by 9.2% on a quarter-on-quarter basis in the third quarter of this year, a turnaround from the 13.2% decline in the second quarter.

-Many online paid streaming services have increased in their sales due to the pandemic. Streaming is now a US$75 million dollar industry in Singapore, and it will continue to grow. In fact, the industry is expected to generate slightly less than $1 billion in revenue by 2024. These have also led to an increase in employment in the online paid streaming industry.

-As the demand for paid streaming services continues to increase, we are able to expect an increase in the employment in this industry as more manpower would be needed to meet the demand and expectations of the services.

-With the increase in demand and consumer spending towards paid streaming services, the GDP will increase, naturally pulling up the GDP per capita. This gives an indication of the living standards in Singapore, so with a higher GDP per capita, the living standards in Singapore would be better. 

[8]Unemployment rate for industry describing the Netflix job opportunities
 https://advanced-television.com/2021/11/18/report-netflix-hiring-tilts-towards-apac-countries/

[9] Unemployment rate for Singapore
https://tradingeconomics.com/singapore/unemployment-rate

[10] Inflation - netflix raising price
https://mustsharenews.com/netflix-raises-fees/

[11] Inflation - revenue of streaming services
https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1258543/video-streaming-svod-revenue-singapore

[12] Inflation - Singapores inflation rate in 2021
https://www.worlddata.info/asia/singapore/inflation-rates.php 

Summary

[13] Increase in video streaming revenue
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/video-streaming-revenue-set-soar-high-spending-singapore-giachi

[14] MTI resources ( an economic survey)
https://www.mti.gov.sg/-/media/MTI/Resources/Economic-Survey-of-Singapore/2020/Economic-Survey-of-Singapore-First-Quarter-2020/FA_1Q20.pdf

One thing that I think we can work on would be speaking up and contributing more during group calls. Some of us tend to be a little quiet during the call and only speaks when are asked to. It would be better if everyone contributes actively. 

One thing that I found interesting when I was doing macro-analysis was the sectors that remained competitive and contributed the most to the GDP growth for years continuously. For instance, sectors like manufacturing and finance and insurance made the most contribution to the growth.