Streaming services have now been around for over a decade. Not only are they making less people go to the theater, they are dumping a lot of trash content on their platforms just so they can say they have originals. Netflix released in 2007 and was one of the first mainstream streaming services. Every year Netflix has grown, but they have also raised the price. At first Netflix was $8 a month but is currently $15.49 for the standard version.
Netflix’s success led to a multitude of other companies to make their own streaming services. Disney made Disney+, Amazon made Amazon Prime Video, Warner Bros. made Max, Paramount made Paramount+, Universal made Peacock and the list continues.
“There’s some you just don’t need like Peacock and Paramount. There’s no point in them,” said senior Grant Swayngim.
The amount of streaming services has defeated the original purpose of a streaming service which was to have one place where you can stream any movie. With all of the different streaming services, you would at least be paying $50 a month for only a couple of these services. It was a lot simpler when only a couple streaming services existed and you were able to watch movies from different companies on one platform.
With the amount of competition there is between different streaming services, companies want to differentiate themselves by having original content on their platform. Most original content is notorious for being subpar and nothing special. Only a few pieces of original content are considered to be great.
“I don’t really watch the original content. It’s usually just dry and filler content,” said Swayngim.
Even if most of the original content on these services was considered to be good, companies behind the platforms refuse to put most of their original content on physical media. This means if a streaming service were to shut down, there would be no legal way to watch the lost content. The streaming service doesn’t even have to shut down for this to happen, services like Max, Disney+, and a multitude of others have removed original content from their service out of the blue. This means the work that people put into some of these projects went to waste, and people are unable to watch their work anymore. This hurts consumers that wanted to watch some of the original content but it was removed and the creatives behind the content that went to waste.
During 2020, streaming services grew a lot due to everyone being stuck at home. There were many movies that were supposed to be released in theaters towards the beginning of the pandemic but instead got dumped straight to streaming services. After COVID passed and companies started to release their movies in theaters again, a lot of people were still afraid to go to the theaters.
As a result, companies began releasing their movies on streaming within a couple of months after the theatrical release. Audiences eventually expected for a movie to be released on streaming platforms a couple of months after the theatrical release, and this is still happening in 2024. This is causing less people to go to the theater because they just want to save their money and wait a couple months so they can watch it in the comfort of their own home. Most audience members are now only willing to watch big, must-see movies in theaters and are skipping out on smaller movies that aren’t connected to a big franchise. This will cause studios to only make big blockbuster movies and stop taking risks with some movies in fear that they will flop at the box office.
“If I really want to see something like ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ I’ll go see it in theaters. But if it’s a movie like ‘Alien: Romulus,’ I’ll just wait until it goes on streaming,” said Swayngim.
Streaming services have become too mainstream, and there are too many of them. These services have become too expensive, the original content is deteriorating in quality, they are wasting the content many people worked hard on, and they are driving people away from movie theaters.
