Too many streaming services, not enough money
January 30, 2020
With the fall of cable TV, people have started subscribing to online streaming services to get the content they want. What used to be a convenient way to pay a small monthly fee for all the shows and movies someone would want has turned into dozens of companies scrambling to bring their content onto their own special platforms. Shows and movies are being taken from one platform to another so that more people will switch services, but all this does is spread everything so thin that potential customers are turned away.
Netflix is credited with being the first major online streaming service to offer a wide variety of iconic shows and movies, and eventually more services surfaced. Hulu followed after, which led to multiple shows and movies being pulled from Netflix and put onto Hulu. Both of these services started to offer different packages, with Hulu giving customers the choice to spend less money every month at the cost of having to watch advertisements, while Netflix allowed users to pay more every month so more devices can be logged into the same account at once.
For multiple years, these two were the most popular websites for watching movies and shows, but after that other services started being created.Websites like Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, and others have come up in the streaming scene.
Iconic movies and TV shows are spreading to other platforms, making them less accessible. Disney+ took all the Disney movies and TV shows off of Netflix, and shows like Friends, The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Supernatural are moving to different streaming platforms soon.
The reason people started to use these streaming services more than cable TV was because of the convenience. People could pay a certain fee every month to watch whatever shows or movies they wanted to without having to worry about specific channels. Now there are dozens of these services available.
I think there are way too many streaming services being put for sale. It’s honestly pretty unbelievable if you think about it. I can name at least ten off the top of my head.
— junior Ediz Eribac
The major streaming services available now are (price per month):
- Netflix ($8.99, up to $15.99)
- Hulu ($5.99 with ads, $11.99 without ads)
- Amazon Prime Video ($8.99 a month, included with annual Amazon Prime, $119)
- Apple TV+ ($4.99)
- Disney+ ($6.99)
- CBS All Access ($5.99 with ads, $9.99 without ads)
- HBO Max (Currently unreleased, will be $14.99)
- ESPN+ ($4.99)
- Epix ($9.99)
- Youtube TV ($49.99)
- Sling TV ($30, up to $45)
- HBO Now ($15)
- DirecTV Now ($65, up to $135)
All of these platforms have their own iconic shows, making customers pay for potentially one or two shows or movies. If someone wanted to get every one of these, it would cost an estimated $231.90 a month. What started as a way to escape cable TV’s expensive subscriptions has turned into dozens of different platforms.
