Home Entertainment Friday Debate – There’s just too many streaming services

Friday Debate – There’s just too many streaming services

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Friday-TV

If you look at how we consume entertainment today compared to how we used to do it back in the day of even ten years ago, then online streaming has been a godsend. Once a service only available to the richest of people who could afford that sweet 4mb ADSL line, recent advances in home internet and the software used to deliver that content have made it an industry open to everyone with a few Dollars and Rands to spare every month.

I like to imagine that we all got our first taste with Netflix, bypassing the initial geofencing hurdle with a subscription to bypasses like Unotelly. And for a time, it was good! Netflix reigned supreme, we told regular television and its adverts to go suck a lemon and the options were plentiful. Y’know, until the usual corporate greed set in.

These days, everyone wants a slice of that streaming pie as they work to keep content exclusive in order to coax new viewers in. Amazon has three old men beating a dead horse with an old joke stick in the form of The Grand Tour, Hulu has more traditional TV shows available quicker and Crackle has Super Mansion (It’s rather good). I haven’t even begun to mention HBO and CrunchyRoll’s streaming options, what with Disney now knocking on the door of online entertainment.

The point is, the number of streaming services available is just too damn high.

Nobody wants a monopoly on the industry, but when you need several subscriptions for several shows instead of having them combined on one convenient platform like it used to be, and you’re most likely going to start looking at other options. More less than legal alternatives, that could see a spike in piracy again. What do you think?

Are there too many streaming services flooding the market, or is this good competition for a still nascent industry?

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: August 11, 2017

32 Comments

  1. RinceThis

    August 11, 2017 at 10:39

    Nah, more options are good. I can see in the future some company is going to create a platform where you pay them, and they offer all the channels…

    Reply

    • Ir0nseraph

      August 11, 2017 at 10:43

      Like YouTube TV, they seem to be working towards a service that will include all the channels.
      I think the competition is good, but it’s getting out of hand so I will subscribe for a few months cancel and use the next one, I prefer binge watching anyway.

      Reply

    • Lu

      August 11, 2017 at 11:06

      As long as that company isn’t Naspers

      Reply

  2. Frik van der Hewerskink

    August 11, 2017 at 10:42

    I hate that we have too many game launcher platforms, Running uplay, steam, battle net, gog. it all gets a bit too much for me having them all open

    Reply

  3. Lord Chaos

    August 11, 2017 at 10:50

    Agreed, I mean, who wants to see Darryn try and play games anyway?

    *Runs*

    Reply

    • HvR

      August 11, 2017 at 10:58

      Be careful he might get his hands on a real gun and …. o nevermind you are safe

      Reply

  4. HvR

    August 11, 2017 at 11:00

    Rather have the too many streaming service and selectively subscribe to them than a overcharging monopoly.

    This is just symptom of a healthy competitive and booming industry; we will now see a surge in services until there is more than the market can handle and then the worst ones will start dieing off again.

    Reply

    • HvR

      August 11, 2017 at 11:05

      That we still have geo-fencing in this day and age is way worse than too many streaming services.

      And that is something a very competitive streaming market might fix permanently

      Reply

      • miaau

        August 11, 2017 at 14:26

        the Geofencing is more to do with previous content licensing, i.e. Multichoice has / had the license for a whole whack of things that Netflix could not legally show in SA when they first officially came here.

        Well, that is what Netflix told me, when I mailed them. And I read in the papers.

        Reply

  5. Magoo

    August 11, 2017 at 11:10

    I think you may be on to something… A third-party/middle-man may become a thing. Selling subs to 2 or more services in one package.

    Anyway, we still miss Zoe. >.>

    Reply

  6. Chuckles von Clausewitz III

    August 11, 2017 at 11:22

    Honest competition is always good (it’s the very foundation of our capitalist system), and it means each of these competing services will have to bring their A-game, however as a consumer, I don’t need more than one or two streaming services.

    “Enter the Thunderdome, streaming services!”

    Reply

  7. miaau

    August 11, 2017 at 14:30

    BUT, can we just discuss good service for a bit?

    Amazon, lots of shows, but it seemed like everyone we were interested in had an extra charge beyond the monthly charge. Seriously?

    Hulu. Adverts. That then break the stream sometimes (well it used to -cancelled it a good while back)
    AND they do not keep full seasons for some shows, so you must be constantly watching. Forget trying to watch from the start.

    Netflix: plug in and it works. High quality. Even when our latency, due to copper line fault, sometimes spiked to 500ms on FIRST hop, it somehow still worked.

    So, in my mind, the services operator quite differently and meet different needs. I love Netflix for the lack of hassle they provide.

    Reply

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