We're continuing to change how we do things, thanks to the Internet. Doctors can perform surgery from hundreds of miles away using robots and a broadband connection. Need a ride from A to B? Hop into a Lyft or an Uber. Companies like Netflix have changed how we watch television, commandeering the definition of such lovely terms like "binge."
But here's a question: What if, when it comes to watching shows, we've come full circle?
A common complaint about cable television through the late 1990s and early 2000s was the price and package deals. People often wondered why they had to pay for channels they didn't watch. If John just wanted ESPN and a few news channels, why did he have to pay for Lifetime? Or all those shopping networks? The answer was pretty simple: The cable company offered its product the way it wanted, and if you didn't like it, you could go without.
But Netflix has changed the game. Thanks to this service, we now have the term "cord cutters." These are people who tell the cable companies to go on without them. These hardy souls make do with an Internet connection, satisfied with the shows and movies their streaming services offer. It's hard to beat getting access to thousands of films and series for less than $15 a month.
Netflix helped kill Blockbuster by offering DVD rental via the mail. Then it put cable companies in the crosshairs by not only offering online streaming of popular shows and movies but letting people watch them on their television screens with hookups like Roku or Apple TV or an Xbox. Now Netflix makes its own shows, from instant hits like Stranger Things to popular reboots of old cartoons.
Netflix isn't the only game in town though. HBO Now, Hulu, Amazon and more are in the mix, each with a different selection of original and longtime favorite shows. Want access to The Office, Friends and the new Sabrina series? Netflix has those. Do you want to watch King of the Hill and the new Handmaid's Tale series? Hulu has them. How about House and that new Jack Ryan series? Those are on Amazon. Game of Thrones? You see where we're going.
This brings us to Disney getting ready to launch its own service--and slowly pulling its properties from Netflix. No more Marvel shows, Star Wars movies, or Disney classics. Mickey will be streaming those, starting sometime in 2019. And as other networks like CBS launch online networks in lieu of simply selling their shows to Netflix as they might have five years ago, customers are finding that, hmmm, this song sounds familiar.
Netflix by itself is relatively inexpensive. But when you add in other services like the ones we've mentioned above, your bill begins to get uncomfortably close to your old cable bill. Half a decade ago, customers could get most everything they wanted on Netflix for around $10 a month. Now? The properties you want are becoming more splintered as rival services gobble them up and put them behind a new price tag.
In essence, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Now, CBS All Access and the other services coming into their own (even DC Comics has its own streaming service) are the new television channels. Ask consumers if they'd rather pay $10 a month for a Netflix library with everything they could ever want or $10-$15 apiece for six or seven different services that might each have a piece of what they want.
With a low price for such a vast array of content, consumers were all too happy to throne King Netflix and let $10 be taken from their bank accounts every month. That's not the case anymore. Other companies grew wise to Netflix's game. That's the free market for you.
Perhaps the most ironic part of a splintered streaming market is consumers will usually cheer on competition as it drives down prices. Ask consumers if they'd like to see a new discount airline pop up to fly them anywhere in the country for a flat fee of $200 a month. They'd whip out their debit cards faster than you could say "frequent flyer." But here, competition has already ended up costing consumers more to watch their favorite shows. Friends is on Netflix, but Seinfeld is on Hulu. It might just be the one scenario in which consumers aren't happy to have so many choices because they all cost money.
So we've come full circle. The only difference between streaming services now and cable in the late 1990s is you can pick which "channels" you want to pay for, which is still a welcome freedom. But the days of an all-you-can-eat streaming buffet for $10 a month are over. Everyone and their brother has figured out they make more money starting their own streaming service instead of selling their shows to Netflix. We'll see what they come up with next.
Editorial on 12/12/2018