Streaming is the New Cable

Nearly two decades ago, Netflix became the first of what would become streaming services. Hulu would follow a year later. Then, they were an alternative to cable. Now, they are becoming cable all over again.

Streaming was supposed to be a cheaper, ad-free, on-demand alternative to cable. And they were. But since then, prices for the basic services have gone up, and you have to pay extra to go ad free. But at least you can watch anything you want, when you want. Unless you don’t have that channel, or your internet connection is bad.

At this point, if you want to watch movies or shows by a variety of studios, you have to have a variety of services. Or you could buy the physical copies. Unless it’s something that service produced, cause they don’t usually have physical copies. So, you get the service and hope they never remove it to cut costs.

Sometimes, you have access to a show or movie on one service, only for it to be removed and be on a completely different service. It’s ridiculous.

I’m not saying streaming services are absolutely terrible. But I am seriously annoyed with them. I enjoy being able to watch shows or movies that I love, and some of those I never would have heard of without scrolling through Netflix looking for something to watch. But having subscriptions to the top streaming services; Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Max, Paramount+, and Netflix, with no ads, is about $100 a month. That’s roughly $1,200 a year, and that’s not every major streaming service, just the most popular.

Kai Spahr is a Buhler sophomore studying journalism and the Opinion Page Editor. You can contact them on X: @KaiSpahr

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