Millennials invented cable! This is one of the better memes in the long time, but it works so well. I’ve been reading tech blogs for a very long time and couple of years ago one of the most popular themes was cable cutting. There was a lot of talk, how you can cut the cable, subscribe to a couple of services, buy antenna and save a lot of money.
For some time Netflix and Hulu (in the US) were the ones to have. There was a lot of content, some old, some new, some originals. Now, every company wants to build its own subscription service and charge for it about 10$ a month. And as this is the golden age of the TV you’ll want to watch them all. Subscribing to Netflix, Apple TV+ and Disney, for example, would be about 30$ per month. Add to it Apple Music or Spotify (that’s another 10$) and probably gaming service or two (Apple Arcade and PSN). 50$ and that’s not even trying. Want to watch Office next year – another service.
This all adds up very easily. Apps are implementing subscriptions more and more. Weather apps, Twitter clients, writing apps, Podcasts apps. Everything is a subscription.
For the video services, my plan would probably be keeping Netflix and adding one other services. The service I add will depend on the content it has. There is something new on Disney+? Subscribe for a month or two, until I watch it and something else pops up on another service.
When music streaming became a thing, it destroyed piracy in some markets, as it was much easier to pay and listen to all the music you want, without the need to download, clean meta-data, upload to the phone, etc. Now, with all those video services coming out, I have a feeling, piracy will again rise. You either look for it on some shady website, where it is all lumped together or you take your time to figure out which service it is on. Sure, something like Apple TV could help (app, not a device), but already not every streaming service is in there (and Netflix will never agree to be added).
I hope I’m wrong and those services will prosper and companies will have funds and willingness to produce more great shows.