Over the last couple of years, streaming services have become more and more popular with more and more options available. Streaming services have a huge benefit: convenience. With a few clicks of a button, you have hundreds of thousands of movies and TV shows available to you at a low monthly price.
This has almost single-handedly driven companies like Blockbuster out of business. There is no need to drive to a store and rent a movie when it is available on your TV.
But with everything, there are problems, and streaming services have plenty of them.
A huge issue with streaming services is there are way too many options available. There is Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, Disney+, Amazon Prime, etc. All of them have shows specific to themselves with hardly any sharing services. HBO Max has the streaming rights to DC and Warner Bros. and Disney+ has the streaming rights to Star Wars and Marvel. This makes it where you have to subscribe to stream these companies’ movies.
All of these services have monthly packages for different prices. If you subscribe to multiple, the price can add up quickly.
Streaming services keep getting more and more expensive. Inflation is currently hitting hard, but the prices of these services have continued to go up for the past couple of years.
In the past five years, Netflix has increased the price of its standard plan from $10.99 per month to $15.49 per month. And in the past year, Hulu has increased the price of the ad-supported plan from $6.99 per month to $7.99 per month and the ad-free plan from $12.99 per month to $14.99 per month. In a time of saving money, people will have to cut back on streaming services.
Streaming services consist of all recorded shows and movies, nothing live. But what about the people who do want live TV?
You can also stream that with services like YouTube TV and Sling. But these are also feeling the effects of inflation. In the next month, YouTube TV is increasing its monthly price from $64.99 to $72.99. In YouTube TV’s six-year history, they have already doubled in price going from $34.99 per month in 2017, to the current $72.99 per month. There is no real “cheap” option for TV anymore. You have to keep your eyes open for deals and shop around.
We are also seeing TV series and movies coming and going with the wind. It seems like a show can never stay on one streaming service for long before it’s gone. If streaming services want to make and keep loyal customers, they need to figure out a way to keep shows on their service and not remove them.
The ultimate question is what can be done to prevent these problems? There is no answer. In a perfect world, there would only be one streaming service that includes everything from all of the different services. But the sad truth is that that will probably never happen. One service for a reasonable price that includes everything you want to watch is the perfect answer.