Who Won The Streaming Wars… Because It Wasn’t You

screenrant.com:

While the debate rages on regarding which platform has won the streaming wars — whether it be Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, or any one of the seemingly unlimited numbers of streaming services - there is one clear loser: the viewers. It doesn't take a business genius to realize that the once novel concept that was popularized by Netflix has grown into an almost overwhelming array of media corporations attempting to get their piece of the pie. The streaming wars are still raging on, with services appearing, merging, and disappearing at an almost incomprehensible rate, but the biggest fatality in this battle for subscriptions is the customer experience.

The list of streaming services is endless, ranging from all-encompassing platforms like HBO Max to niche genre-specific offerings like Shudder. While it seems like it now takes a guide to navigate the streaming service landscape, the idea actually started as a way to improve the experience of the viewer. In the era of Blockbuster movie rentals and cable television, Netflix appeared on the scene, offering on-demand and in-demand TV shows and movies. Netflix was the sole major service in this wild west of streaming, but as other companies realized the potential profits, this quickly changed. Instead of a company licensing out their content to Netflix or Hulu, recently media companies have begun to create their own streaming services, which is where the problems began. Platforms like Dinsey+, Paramount+, and Discovery+ began subtracting their content from these popular streaming services in favor of exclusively streaming them on in-house services. While this makes business sense, it only hurts the customer by recreating the issues that Netflix was meant to solve.

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