In the year 2023, the way we consume media, such as films and tv shows, has drastically changed compared to the beginning of the 21st century. With the expansion of the wide web, there have been more options for how to consume entertainment instead of just DVDs and movie theaters. One of the most highly used ways to watch films is through streaming services. Streaming services, which are monthly subscription sites, allow subscribers to watch a category of movies and television shows. One of the biggest and earliest streaming services was Netflix, which hosted large amounts of TV shows and movies for people to enjoy. In recent years, however, entertainment companies have been deviating from bigger streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. These companies have gone on to create their own streaming services which has led to a large variety of different streaming services. With all these streaming services, the question could be asked: how many is too many? Are there too many streaming services compared to the past?
The biggest selling point for streaming services is what shows and movies they carry. Services like Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Disney+ advertise their most popular shows and movies to entice people to buy their subscription. With all these different services, it means you’re less likely to find a streaming service with all that you’re interested in watching. If you want to watch multiple movies and films, but they’re not on the same service, you could end up spending much more for multiple subscriptions. Even if you do pay for a subscription, there’s no guarantee that the content you want to watch will stay on that service. Shows and movies can switch from service to service, seemingly at random, meaning a show could be on HBO Max one day and Amazon Prime the second. With an abundance of services, there’s an even greater chance of being forced to pay for more than one subscription if you’re looking to watch multiple shows.
A big problem that stems from an abundance of streaming services is the pricing. The problem comes in that a lot of streaming services also follow that plan and around the same price. If you want to watch Stranger Things, The Last of Us, and The Office, you’re going to have to subscribe to three different streaming services: Netflix, HBO Max, and Peacock. With those three subscriptions, you’ll be paying them either per month, every few months for a larger fee or for an even larger fee for the whole year. Just to watch three shows in one month could cost up to $25 a month for the less expensive plans of the mentioned services and up to $46 a month with the more expensive options. The problem comes in that streaming services have expanded so much that if you had wanted to watch shows like those a decade ago, the amount of services you’d have to sign up for wouldn’t be nearly as much and not have that high of a price.
As time continues, it seems the streaming service expansion is not close to slowing down as companies continue to cash in on the success of starting their own service for their own shows.
