On the up-side, I can cancel subscriptions whenever I want and only subscribe to one or two at a time when they have something I want to watch. I could never do that with cable.
That said, pricing is getting way out of control. I will not tolerate ads and we're getting to the point where purchasing content makes more financial sense than subscribing to things that load you up with caveats unless you pay premiums.
With the current state of streaming services mess, I think I would have signed up for disc rental by mail. Access to nearly 100% of media at highest quality for around 10 to 15 bucks a month seems like pretty good deal right about now. Sadly Netflix killed that part of their business so I can't even go back to that.
It's not like netflix is the only one that can offer that kind of service. You've still got gamefly, 3D Bluray Rental, cafedvd, redbox (if you're fine with going to a kiosk), your public library, and probably others if you care to search for them.
I stopped using Hulu when it introduced ads over a decade ago and never looked back. The stock of that company did really well despite the cable-like inconveniences.
It's still way more awesome than cable ever was. Sure you can have all the services all at once and pay as much as a cable bill, or you can rotate your subscriptions and pay way less.
I’m not sure about that. Popular shows get canceled, unfinished. Huge price hikes, and you can’t jump to another provider to watch the shows at a new rate or call and threaten to cancel to get a new rate. Sure, there are a few good series, but it’s still mostly crap. Sure, you can watch some older movies on demand, but plenty aren’t available, are available on some other service, and/or require you to pay a rental fee if you can find it. Prices keep climbing, ads are constantly a threat, and they place more restrictions on how many devices you’re allowed to watch on.
They are doing everything they can to re-insert the worst aspects of cable.
The real difference is you can watch what you want to watch on demand instead of being limited to their selection of shows on their schedule.
Also, you can sign up for a month, watch a series, then cancel and sign up to some other service. Pay for several services and sure, it's expensive. But one or two? Still a hell of a lot cheaper than Cable ever was.
The fact most content is crap is irrelevant - there's more good content available than any reasonable person has time to watch.
I probably couldn't list all the absolute master pieces I've watched since streaming became a thing. This is some serious rose tinted glasses for the cable Era.
I like reruns of Stargate and law and order as much as the next guy but cable was absolute shit when it came to compelling series.
I hope it's just the literal flood of content we get hit with every some odd months that is warping your perception. You know, rather than the 4 month long weekly episode drops we use to have to suffer through so they could jack up prices on what ever ad they wanted to run in prime time.
That's not even mentioning the vast graveyards of pilots for series that where DOA based solely on air time.
The biggest change to me is how much the streaming services are pushing commercials now. Paying to watch commercials really completes the transition back to cable.
Paying to watch commercials will be a no from me. I remember people did this but it is still hard to believe. 1/3 of the content per hour is ads, they are all repetitive and stupid. Except now they are repetitive and stupid despite selling all your data to the advertisers.
My hot take, in the digital age, all direct marketing should be opt-in with the platform. Opt-in for industries with the ability to ban specific advertisers.
