Everyone my age loves streaming. Our lives are busy, chaotic, and honestly, a complete mess. We have homework, class, jobs, job interviews, campus organization meetings, volunteer/charity work, weekly meltdowns eating cookie dough ice cream when it all gets too much. The last one may just be me.
When I do melt down and I’m finishing my pint of ice cream, I’m streaming TV shows. If class ended 20 minutes early because the professor doesn’t want us to be ahead of the other class section, I might finish up How To Get Away With Murder on Hulu. If I’m meeting a friend for lunch and they texted me they’re running late, I’m likely to watch a fun episode of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.
The point is, streaming is convenient for people my age and older if they have careers and children. We can decide when and where we watch our content. It can adapt to our schedules and the streaming services fits our needs. Netflix is better for movies (and original content in my opinion), Hulu is good for staying current on TV shows and Amazon Prime is part of the Amazon ecosystem.
Each of these services have their pros and cons and there are still more. I haven’t even mention HBO Go/Now. There’s so many now and there are stories of more in the works. Disney wants to create its own streaming service. Its goal is curate all or most Disney movies and shows. DC, the comic book company, is also planning its own streaming service. A cartoon series named Young Justice, which was previously on Cartoon Network, is set to move to the streaming service. Additionally, a live-action Teen Titans is slowly in the works to stream on the service.
DC and Disney want their own proprietary services. Streaming is very popular, and I can’t necessarily blame them for wanting their own slice of the pie. My problem is that there’s already enough services. In my opinion, the industry is going to be a little over-saturated. With the first few services I named, a person could have one or two and be satisfied with getting most of the content they like. A combination of two services should guarantee we have all the TV shows and movies we want.
So in the near future, am I expected to have Netflix and/or Hulu as a general source for content, a Disney subscription if I want to watch any Disney film one night, and a DC subscription for Teen Titans? I think not! I can’t afford all that, and even if I could, certainly don’t want to. Netflix raised it’s prices and I only have Hulu because of the Spotify student discount. Even if my finances change as I graduate and build a career, all of these prices for content– and the WiFi connection to watch it– are burdensome.
The interesting thing about streaming is that it is convenient and (fairly) affordable. Having too many services on the market is neither. Therefore, people will torrent and pirate if they can’t get what they want legally and affordably. HBO didn’t provide online streaming without a cable subscription and everyone would pirate Game of Thrones as a result. HBO introduced HBO Now to solve that and people subscribed to enjoy content legally. People want to enjoy services legally if it is feasible to them.
Admittedly, Disney might be able to get away with this and be profitable since they own almost everything in entertainment. Disney not only owns their own films and TV shows that most people think of as “Disney,” but also ABC, LucasFilm, Marvel Studios, ESPN and recently 21st Century Fox. It could honestly just be an executive decision on what to include in the streaming service as part of their brand.
Regardless, getting so many of these all at once is overloading and killer on the wallet. I am not looking forward to all these streaming services. I am sure the same could be said for a lot of people. A lot people are gonna pirate and I hope Disney and DC calculated for that. The best I’ll do is try to bum off someone else’s password if I want to watch Moana. Oh well, we’ll see.
Make good choices,
Stanā”
Stan Arnaud 