Have you ever spent an absurd amount of time scrolling through Netflix or other streaming services looking for the perfect series or film to accompany your dinner only to realize your food has gone cold? I know I have, and apparently, I am not the only one.
I remember when I first log in to my family’s Netflix account. I had never spend such long hours in front of my laptop; weekends spent on binge-watching whatever series I can find, weekdays thinking about that one episode I watched before bed knowing I had classes the next day—watching Netflix was the best escapism for me.
As I began to explore more titles and genres, I thought I had hit the jackpot. I will never be bored with watching TV ever again; with new releases coming each month, I was free to choose whatever film or TV show I want to watch. As Netflix began to dominate the streaming media industry, other streaming platforms started to emerge: Disney+, HBO, Amazon Prime, even Apple started to provide their own subscription-based streaming media services. At this point, people started to abandon cable TV and started to subscribe to multiple streaming platforms, which has been an ongoing trend for the past decade. Earlier this year, it was reported that not one of United States’ TV networks reached above two million in viewership in 2023. The streaming services industry, however, collectively garnered over 1.1 billion subscribers from all over the world.
Though the freedom of choice made me feel like I am in a utopia, I began to feel overwhelmed with choices. There are over two million titles to choose from. I don’t even know where to begin! Which platform should I pick? Should I continue watching my previous lists? or catch up will all those new TV series or films? It feels impossible with all of those hour-long episodes and with whatever was trending at that moment. Evidently, people are facing a similar problem, over 40% of respondents in a 2022 survey said that they are overwhelmed with deciding which streaming platform they want to watch.
Though this seems like a trivial problem, it definitely took a lot of my time. I would just gave up all together and finish my meal without watching anything (Wow! in this day and age?). Netflix tried to take care of this problem by introducing Shuffle Play in which they would randomly pick a title for you. Yet, just a year later, they stopped this feature because of its low-used.
Not finished with this dilema, each time I want to renew my streaming services, some just gets more expensive. With the limited regional access from HBOMax and Disney+ (For example in my country it is branded as HBO GO and Disney Hotstar) and with Netflix’s new policy that limits password sharing, I can no longer use accounts that I used back in my home country, which means I will be in charge of my own subscription. As a student living abroad, I am not willing to spend a quarter of my monthly budget just to subscribe to a streaming services, especially when I can’t make up my mind on which ones I want to watch.
With these small problems piling up, it does not look good for the future of streaming media services. That begs the question, will streaming services stay relevant for the next decade, or will we be looking out for the next best thing?
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