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Indeed, it is progress: - No ads - You can watch on demand - Orders of magnitude more choice in what to watch - Writers have a lot more flexibility. They do

• ianai 7y ago
  Say what you want, but ten streaming services aren’t the same as a cable subscription nor obviously better. Different things are different. Sure I can dial up what I want to watch of the provided content on demand with streaming services. But that’s not the same as turning on the tv and switching between curated content.
• decebalus1 7y ago
  I cancelled my cable back in 2008 and while I agree with some of your points, the industry didn't evolve into the thing I envisioned when I did it. > - No ads Not really, Hulu still has ads for the TV stuff, even if you're on Hulu plus. But yeah, overall, way WAY less ads. For now. But I foresee this is more of a capture strategy. After most of us cancel cable, I think we're gonna see a lot of ads on streaming services. Greed is good. In the meantime, product placement galore. Stranger Things was IMO disgusting from this perspective. Ads just moved from interrupting you to basically taking over the shows. > - You can watch on demand I agree, this is indeed a good thing > - Orders of magnitude more choice in what to watch Yes, but no. Most streaming services have a lot of filler. A lot of garbage is counted against the 'we have a 10k catalog of movies' but in the end, you have a lot of choice, between a douche and a whole bunch of turds. > - Writers have a lot more flexibility. They don't have to be advertiser friendly. Nope, nope, nope. Yes from the show's structure perspective, but in general, It's the exact opposite. Now, they have to write in way more product placement pieces. > - Writers don't have to write cliffhangers every N minutes so you come back after the ad break. - Writers don't have to worry about sequence like they did with TV/Cable, because they know you'll be able to watch the show in order. Meaning that their worlds and characters can change and have real consequence. While it's true writers don't have the same problems, they have different problems. Now they have to pander to specific user-research needs, they need to create season-wide cliffhangers and because they know you'll watch the show in order, there's way less shit they can get away with.
• cactus2093 7y ago
  No ads is not always true, but otherwise I agree with you. Another benefit is less shitty pricing models, none of this first year pricing after which it goes up 50% that Comcast loves to do, and no year-long contracts.
  • bagacrap 7y ago
    Hulu has ads. Any others?
  • ehsankia 7y ago
    Hulu is the only one with ads, and that's if you get the 5$ version. If you get the 10$ version as implied in the post above, it has no ads.
    • decebalus1 7y ago
      There are a few shows which have ads regardless of plan (Grey's Anatomy is one of them)
• Aunche 7y ago
  I think the biggest advantage is that you can share accounts with your friends.
• pacomerh 7y ago
  > - Writers don't have to write cliffhangers every N minutes so you come back after the ad break. yes!, and am I glad about it, we have more paced stories
• ehsankia 7y ago
  The first two are already worth it alone. No ads double the monetary value in my mind, and on demand is by far the most important part. Sure you can sorta fix that with a DVR but not even really.
• cwkoss 7y ago
  Disney Plus will have ads
• Apofis 7y ago
  I wanted to watch Borat this weekend because the Spy came out and Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Now didn't have it. Big fat meh.