Remember when TV wasn’t nearly this complicated? At one time a lot of us had a handful of channels at best and were glad to have them even if nothing was on. Nowadays if you don’t have Netflix or a TV that can access the internet you’re thought of as outdated and almost completely analog. The biggest deal lately however are free, ad-supported streaming services that are decidedly anti-Netflix and are even being installed within the new TV’s that are coming out. There seem to be a lot of good points that are coming off of this uprising since quite honestly Netflix and other streaming services that run their own shows can cost a person a significant amount of money at times if you really want to follow everything that you’re into.
There is an inherent problem with both streaming services however, and that’s when it comes to live TV vs. the services that can stream just about anything and everything they can get their hands on…from a movie or series standpoint. In this light it seems that ad-driven streaming has the edge since the cost is far less at this point and should hopefully remain so as long as possible in order to cater to the cost-sensitive individuals that don’t want to pay for two or three services just to enjoy the shows and films that they love. The strange thing is that people seem to forget that we still have things such as DVD players and even iTunes from which to access thousands of films, and TV shows. The newness of a streaming network and the novelty of it seem to make a lot of folks forget the simpler times and the idea that what they’re paying for the streaming services isn’t all that much compared to what a new TV with all the added technology can cost.
Of course on the upside the cost of a new TV is a one-time expense that won’t continue to rack up throughout the years and possibly increase over time. Yet for all that the term ad-supported seems to be self-defeating in a way that is described in its description of being ‘ad-supported’. Advertising after all does manage to scrounge up a great deal of revenue for any and all services that have ever existed, and affixing the term ‘free’ to any service is going to get anyone excited enough to forget that advertising is still a very big drawback when one is attempting to enjoy their show or movie. The downside is that while the ads are capable of being removed, one has to pay in order to experience their favorite programs without the ads that many sought to get away from by first coming to streaming services. With services like Netflix the cost might be more, but there’s always the option to take the most basic service, and it includes the benefit of not having to deal with ads, instead of forcing a person to pony up the money for the privilege instead.
So yes, ad-supported streaming services are cheaper and they are taking Netflix and other streaming platforms by storm, but as of yet it wouldn’t be fair to say that they’re going to topple a giant and become the new norm within the streaming industry. The fact that they can offer so much and do so for less money is unfortunately not as strong of a move against Netflix as one might think. Consider this fact, Netflix has been around longer, they’ve established themselves as a streaming giant, and they’ve hiked their rates perhaps once or twice in all that time. They’ve never tricked their customers into thinking they were getting the better deal only to turn around and tell them that they need to pay to have something they didn’t want to see taken off, and in truth their packages are fairly reasonable when compared to cable and several others.
Cable on the other hand is one thing that might never go away no matter which streaming service attempts to topple it since there is simply too much aside from movies and sitcoms that people want to watch that is not available on streaming services. At this point the fight for supremacy is among the streaming services, while cable has been largely left to its own devices and to those that still find it necessary to watch sports, the news, and any other live shows that streaming doesn’t always cover. Whoever comes out on top in this particular matter will do so largely because they’ve managed to convince the largest number of people of the veracity of their business plan, not necessarily because they’re the best. Netflix has been around too long at this point to simply roll over and die, and yet the ad-supported streaming services are stacking the deck as much as possible in order to topple the streaming giant.
Whatever happens, the customers are still going to end up paying.
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