An unnecessary amount of streaming services exist today. The main appeal of streaming services in the first place was to have a wide range of shows and movies that could be watched at any time for a lower price than Cable TV. However, with rising subscription costs and the staggering drop in the quality of recent releases. Consumers are left with a choice; continue to use these streaming services or seek alternatives?
There is debate on whether these services should be restricted to the extent that Cable TV was. Some services have the option of a kids account that limits the access of shows and movies to ones deemed appropriate for children. Services like HBO’s max have a reputation of producing more mature shows like their House of the Dragon series, so these constraints would affect them more than services like Disney+.
With events like the Writer’s Strike slowing down production and releases of shows, studios are under pressure to churn out high-budget low-quality movies in order to meet consumer demand. The recent decline in box office revenue has prompted streaming services to release their original movies right to their sites. Many subscribers complain about the quality of shows and movies that are being produced, as well as a surplus in sequels and remakes instead of original content.
Hulu and other streaming services have an add-on deal to their subscriptions in order to see live events like sports which the majority of people still use Cable for. Also, many sites are offering dual subscriptions bundled along with mobile data and phone plans. In recent years, the services have gotten rid of the ability to share your account with people in different households. While this had increased the amount of subscriptions in each of their respective services, it became a point of contention for consumers.
Consumers will eventually get fed up with the higher prices and gravitate toward cheaper alternatives, which might mean a Cable TV comeback. The pirating of shows and movies will increase drastically, which has already seen a 12% rise in the past four years. That could be just pirating a show’s new season instead of renewing a subscription for a service because it’s not on one of the main services that people own. All the streaming services corporations are not going to suddenly sacrifice their greed for the sake of consumers, but they might have to make changes if they continue on this downward trend.
The primary problem is the lack of competition between these different companies since they each have different shows and movies that customers desire. The companies don’t necessarily have to compete when consumers are purchasing several different services in order to get their favorite media. Bringing back competition in the market will lower those prices for consumers, whether that be making the parameters more lenient over ownership of shows and movies or enforcing that they be moved on to more than one platform.
