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1y ago

Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate | What should I watch? is now a much easier question than How do I watch it?

www.theatlantic.com Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate

What should I watch? is now a much easier question than How do I watch it?

Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate

Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate | What should I watch? is now a much easier question than How do I watch it?::

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What should I watch?

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is now a much easier question than

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How do I watch it?

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210 comments

I just subscribe to everything. Even a few niche services like britbox.
After taking into account credit card kickbacks, discounts from T-Mobile, and discounts from annual plans, I pay about 1/3 less than I did for cable with all the movie stations and DVR service back in the early aughts. And I'm even counting adding basic cable to my Internet (I use an app to stream that so no extra box). And I'm not even accounting for 20 years of inflation, with that it's about a 60% reduction.
So I pay 60% less after inflation for almost every movie and TV show ever made commercial free on demand on any device I own anywhere in the world (some programming changes apply) and live news and sports with the cable app (I don't think I've tried the cable app overseas though).
It used to be appointment TV with non-premium stations having 30-35% commercial time. Even when TiVo came out you had to buy it and pay a sub, and when cable started offering DVR you paid for a more expensive box rental on top of paying monthly for the ability to DVR, double-dipping fuckers.
I really don't understand complaints about streaming. Compared to what it's replacing it's an amazing upgrade in price, quality, and convenience. When do you ever get that? How hard is it to figure out what service something is on? Most boxes have a universial search and if your using a mobile device Google is right there. Yeah prices get higher on occasion, but inflation is a thing and now that content producers see the profit in streaming they're putting money into new content, which makes me think of another thing: content produced for streaming is vastly superior, even on streaming services from the old major networks. Stuff that wouldn't have gotten by the advertisers, let alone the censors for commercial broadcast, and no editing for time. A particular episode needs an extra couple/several minutes to be told correctly, no big deal.
As someone who loves the silver screen, and the small screen, for art and entertainment that can't be called art with a straight face, I love streaming. I can't understand how anyone who paid for cable/satellite in the past couldn't.
Sorry for the ramble, can't be bothered to edit for clarity or readability.
- I think one thing to keep in mind, is that a lot of the streaming service news is more American focused. A lot of Americans are struggling to afford things as it is. Obviously there is animosity and frustration about it all especially as streaming services lose value and raise prices at the same time.
  
  Those arguments are exactly what I'm disputing. The prices are lower and value proposition is higher.
  It seems like prices are going up because services are coming out a bit at a time and each of them are taking a little while to mature. Cheap initial offerings followed by price increases when they get their shit together.
  Imagine if you could go back 15-20 years and flip a switch and have all the streaming services as they exist today all at once. You could tell those same struggling Americans "I can reduce your tv bill 40-60%, increase available content, and you can access that content anytime and anywhere you want commercial free, also unlike cable/satellite you can pick and choose or rotate services to save even more and if your cool with some (still less than cable) ads you can save even more."
  Streaming is a massive value increase over cable/satellite, and a major price cut with options to tailor the price and content to work best for you.
  
  Comcast - $93/mo.
  Netflix - $20/mo
  Disney+ Trio Premium - $25/mo
  Paramount Plus - $12/mo
  HBO Max - $20/mo
  Starz - $10/mo
  Amazon Prime - $15/mo.
  I haven't even listed all of the streaming services out there yet and we're already over the price of cable in a month. So yeah, it's not a price cut at this point anymore. It's a price increase.
  
  Apples and oranges. The person that has all the streaming services, like me, would want all the premium channels. HBO, Cinemax, showtime, the movie channel are all 10 each. So now you're at $133 and that is before all the add-on charges, taxes, and any other packages.
  I don't know what the pricing is now, but I moved around a bit in college and after and in the late 90s and early aughts I had service from the each of big 3 and DirecTV at one point or another and paid 90-120 not inflation adjusted and that is just TV, this is pre-broadband.
  You're also not taking into account streaming discounts.
  With tmobile the highest tier of Netflix is $7.
  Annually and with a $25 statement credit from Amex HBO is $125/year, $10.42/month. (Legacy ad free so 4k)
  Amazon I don't count, I have prime for shipping, TV is a bonus, even if you don't buy that putting the entire amount to video streaming is pretty disingenuous with everything else you get. Maybe call it $5/month.
  My Disney trio gets me a $7/month AMEX statement credit so $18.
  Paramount+with showtime is $120/year so $10/month. I also get a statement credit from AMEX for that but I can't be bothered to look it up.
  Starz is $70/year so $5.83/month. And it's another one with an Amex statement credit I can't be bothered to look up.
  Additionally, all my streaming services get a 6% cash back from Amex on top of the statement credits.
  So the ones you listed (I have more, I just did the ones you mentioned, Apple TV+ is free with tmobile for example) would be $65.52-the statement credits I can't be bothered to look up.(6% off doesn't apply to Netflix because it's paid through T-Mobile)
  So about 50% cheaper with all the benefits of streaming over appointment commercial TV. (Although, to be faaaaaiir, once you add in my others, peacock, britbox, crunchyroll, Viki, maybe something I'm forgetting, it's back to the ~1/3 I mentioned before.)(But to be fair the other way, a lot of that stuff isn't available on cable/satellite at any price period.)

210 comments