Over the past 15 years, the landscape of television has been revolutionized. What started as cable television – a technology that brought us dozens of entertainment options in hundreds of commercials – has now changed to a streaming world.
When I first started to dabble in “streaming” it was to catch random baseball games and a few of my favorite TV shows bounced off of foreign satellites. Sometimes it worked – most times it didn’t. But the idea of commercial-free viewing on demand and on my own schedule was too lucrative to pass up. So years before it became mainstream, I installed a VPN, I got my favorite streaming sites bookmarked, and worked on how to get those piped over to my television set.
The setup was complicated, messy, and certainly not wife-approved (she needed one button to turn on her shows). But when it worked, I could watch almost any program at any time without commercials. The legality of it was…untested.
It was a tradeoff between convenience and efficiency but it work for me. And it remained for years until big media finally caught up and changed their streaming model. On the way out were the set-top boxes streaming the same 50 channels and on the way in came Paramount+, Apple TV+, HBO Max, and a dozen other streaming services. For a low price, you could have the entire catalog of those networks streamed to you without commercials. Netflix and chill became the norm. A night of binging Star Trek was a full Saturday night.
So many evenings watching shows just for the shows without advertisements for dishwasher detergent or toilet paper or car dealerships. It was amazing and helped me gain an appreciation for the shows when you can watch them. Subscription rates skyrocketed for Disney+ and Hulu and all of the others as for several years, that was the operating model – provide content for money. It was a great model and caused a lot of us to “cut” the cable cord for good, opting for streaming content instead.
But as Corporate America does, it didn’t end there. Today, when I watch a Star Wars show on Disney+, I get 10 minutes of commercials for every hour of programming. Basically, the same amount of commercials I got 15 years ago with cable. Same with Hulu and Amazon Prime and many others. It’s like we’ve just completely gone back in time except now I have five streaming services all at $15 a month PLUS the hassle of commercials.
With every good TV show comes the inevitable ending. As I ponder this streaming saga, I wonder: Is there a hidden streaming service out there—one that delivers content without ads, doesn’t require a VPN, and satisfies both my inner couch potato and my wife’s need for simplicity? Perhaps it’s time to invent the “One-Button-Only Streaming Service.” Patent pending.
Ironically, it seems that the only thing close that is less expensive is… you guessed it – cable. Everything old is new again.
(Get more thoughts from Chris Kamler by following him on Twitter, where is @TheFakeNed)