For a moment, it seemed like the streaming apps were the things that could save us from the hegemony of cable TV—a system where you had to pay for a ton of stuff you didn’t want to watch so you could see the handful of things you were actually interested in.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/K4EIh
I uh…have ya’ll used streaming services? Cus this has always been how streaming services worked too.
Uh, no? Netflix used to have everything good. You could drop your $150/mo cable sub and get $10/mo Netflix and never look back.
Netflix has always been missing a ton of shows I love, and had a ton of shows I dont like. But that’s subjective. Objectively, Netflix has had a lot of shows, and you dont get to pick and choose what you pay for. Which is exactly the criticism being targeted at cable TV here.
The criticism isn’t that you get a lot of crap you don’t want. It’s that you’re paying out the nose for a lot of crap you don’t want. Netflix had (arguably, granted) a much higher ratio of watchable shows, no commercials and at a fraction of the price!
The issue is that now all the best stuff got parcelled out onto their own streaming platforms so you no longer get that high ratio of watchable stuff all for one low price. Parks and Rec isn’t on Netflix anymore. Neither is 30 Rock or Futurama or Bobs Burgers. Neither is Daredevil. Etc etc. To get all that content that used to be in one place, I now have to go to Peacock, Hulu, Disney+, etc. It ends up being the same problem of having to pay a huge monthly fee to see everything I want except instead of paying it to Comcast, I’m paying it to 10 different streaming services.
Oh you want to watch Parks and Rec? That’s $10/mo or whatever the fuck Peacock charges. I wouldn’t know because I’m not paying for an entire streaming service to watch one fucking show. Same goes for every other garbage streaming service with one or two good shows and no other redeeming qualities (looking at you Paramount+, Apple TV+, etc).
The issue isn’t that there’s a lot of crap I don’t want to watch. The issue is that there is very little I DO want to watch on each and if I were to buy them all, I’m paying the same amount I was before for cable.
You make it sound like Netflix was broken up and has less on it now, but it’s gotten more shows over time. For me Hulu popping up was amazing, Im big on animation and a lot of cartoons that were never on Netflix were on there. Hulu not existing before didnt mean those shows were on Netflix, they just werent available. Which is the upside to Netflix getting competition to its monopoly, more choices and more shows available. I hope we get more genre dedicated streaming services like Crunchyroll, then you’ve got more of an objective argument that you’re paying for what you want to watch and not “a ton of stuff you didn’t want to watch”.
Nah, Netflix used to have nearly everything, and then it got split into like a dozen different services.
“a system where you had to pay for a ton of stuff”
It’s like ya’ll are directly agreeing with me in words but not really grasping the words you’re saying. Streaming services have always had a lot of shows, some you want to watch, some you dont, but your subscription pays for all of them regardless. Exactly what ya’ll are attempting to criticize cable TV for.
The difference is that in cable TV you are beholden to their schedule. You might subscribe to a channel that has exactly what you want and still be unable to watch it because you are not free at that time.
If stream had everything in one single service, who cares that it also has stuff that you don’t have any interest in? You could spend every moment watching just the thngs that you want to, there was no downside to having things you don’t care about. It’s such an archaic mindset to assume the price is bound to potential availability on an on-demand service.
Netflix used to be priced affordably and have nearly everything. We are seeing now with services being split and prices rising that it doesn’t cost more because it has more shows, just on the contrary. It costs more because they think they can charge more and get us to subscribe to multiple services that offer less.
Im gonna quote this post criticizing cable tv to answer this, “you had to pay for a ton of stuff you didn’t want to watch”
I literally just responded to this.
I literally just responded to this. The comment you are responding to is about what’s the difference and why this is not the issue with streaming.
It’s like you picked the single sentence that doesn’t address that exact point to quote.
I came in to call out the hypocrisy of this post. Who cares that it has stuff that you don’t have any interest in? This post does that Im directly quoting. If you’re here to argue that having irrelevant shows doesnt affect the price, I don’t think you’re agreeing with this post anymore. Because then why care that cable has irrelevant shows?
Oh my fucking god!
How many times are you going to try to bring it back around the same thing that I already responded to.
Streaming services are a worse deal by losing shows and movies that they already had and splitting off into several services. They didn’t use to be like cable, and having a lot of stuff was their advantage, because there is no schedule limitations. A service that had everything has a bunch of stuff each person won’t care about, and it still would have everything everyone would ever want. Priced reasonably, it wouldn’t be an issue specifically as streaming.
I dunno what’s your deal with cable that you want to insist in calling out hypocrisy that doesn’t even apply? If you love cable, keep your cable.
they didnt split off, Netflix’s library has grown over time.
It’s referring to cable packages. Oh you want to be able to watch FX shows? Then get the blue-tier package to add 30 random channels, 28 of which you don’t want for another $30 on top of the base price! Oh you want AMC too? Then get the green tier for another $45 as well that also has 35 channels you don’t want. Sorry, we don’t have a package with both FX and AMC, you’ll need to get the blue AND green packages on top of the $60 base subscription. Sorry, you can’t just choose what channels you want.
Circa 2011 it’d just be like Netflix and/or Hulu were all you need to get most of the content since they had deals with the different studios. Now they’re all segmenting off onto their own.
uh huh, and Im pointing out how it applies to streaming services
And I’m pointing out it wasn’t that way 10 years ago.