The Problem with Streaming Services

Cable? What’s that? Streaming is the future. There’s so many to choose from now! Remember when Netflix had a streaming monopoly? Seems like forever ago. Whenever there’s a king, someone will want to challenge the throne. Along came Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max, Youtube TV, and soooo many others. Naturally, as people flocked to these subscription based services they became bigger. Streaming services became more independent. Why worry about licensing fees when you can just make your own content? So that's what they did.

Fast forward a few years and now streaming originals are a part of the film zeitgeist. Don’t get me wrong, some originals like Netflix’s Marriage Story and Amazon Prime’s The Boys are amazing. However making your own content can be a double edged sword. Here’s the problem with streaming services. In an effort to establish themselves as “movie studios” streaming services just produce anything. Let me explain, it seems like these companies are in a race to see who can have most to offer. In the process of doing that we’ve seen some pretty bad movies and shows.

Streaming originals are hit or miss. For every good production you’ll get three bad ones. I will never forgive Netflix for canceling The Get Down and keeping 13 Reasons Why going on for FOUR SEASONS. The market for movies and shows are so oversaturated now. I blame streaming services. This is a “quantity over quality” situation because a lot of originals like Solar Opposites, The Kissing Both, and Pooka could be dropped. You have to weed through so many bad productions to get to something good. All of this because a company wants to have the most content. There’s no art in some of these projects. Most are so bland and generic. The only “special thing” about it is that you can’t get it anywhere else. But, these products aren’t worth the exclusivity.