I'm no expert, but given the recent trajectory or trend that has taken place, I'm seeing streaming services that compete for our entertainment dollars are either getting worse or at risk of becoming the next cable TV. When streaming was at its infancy, the few benefits that appealed to subscribers like no late fees, no ads, playing content on demand instantly at the click of a button or a tap on the tablet screen seem to have crossfaded into the ether. The same attractive proposition that allowed streaming services like Netflix discontinue their mail order DVD/BLU-RAY rental division and started this whole streaming explosion seems to have left a static malfunction on our screens lately.
Popularized by Netflix itself, streaming services have disrupted DVD and physical media sales for sure, but there were no annoying ads interrupting your viewing experience like every few minutes or so. That has all changed these days - unlike cable TV. I could understand that the channels and or your cable TV provider needed to make money and would have had agreements with companies where they get to advertise their products or services on cable so we viewers can buy said advertised product or service. At least with cable TV, the ads were timed into slots of every five minutes or so of the movie or TV show playing. You at least had the option to get up and walk away during the commercial break and do something else before returning to your regularly scheduled program. Albeit, you may or may not have noticed that the movies or episodic TV shows themselves were edited specifically to allow for commercial breaks.
Now a days, you have subscriptions plans that are cheaper for sure, but they have limited ads but it also limits the quality to Standard Definition (SD). If you needed to streaming in Full High Definition (FHD) or 4K, you needed to select a plan that costs even more. This practice seems to be on the rise and not as simple as it was once before. And I do believe it will be getting worse.
We are currently seeing this with YouTube with monetized channels on the platform. It started out with one ad at the beginning of the video when you clicked on it, but it then morphed into every 30 seconds to a minute per video. I get that content creators on YouTube need to make money somehow to keep their channel and content growing for us viewers to enjoy them, but having ads randomly play every bleedin' 30 seconds to a minute is a bit too much.
Plus, to add to the frustration, streaming providers can, and at little to no notice, pull that favorite movie or TV show that we love and cherish off their streaming library at anytime and we still have to pay a monthly fee to access their library. They can claim licensing issues from the suppler or the production company of the movie or TV show or space constraints all they like, but they will remove them nonetheless. The ever popular saying in the comment section on a handful of YouTube videos: "You will own nothing and you will be happy" comes to mind, which by the way is being trending around a lot lately.
So, the best solution I believe given the circumstances is to either go back to owing content on physical media or producing content on physical media for as long as it is still available and or source able. This way, we can avoid the annoying ads, the monthly fee we have to pay regardless or our favorite TV show or movie being deleted from the library regardless of the excuses given by streaming services. I know this is something that is inconvenient to a lot of you, but would you rather contend with annoying ads every 30 seconds to a minute, making the content less enjoyable, or would you invest a little bit extra and own a physical media copy of said content.
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