Netflix was supposed to save us from cable. Now, it looks like we’re going back
Cut the cable? Not so fast...
For years, it felt like we were enjoying a revolution in the entertainment industry. The meteoric rise of streaming services and the decline of old media empires that followed was celebrated for providing consumers with cheaper, higher-quality content while giving them what they have wanted for decades: the ability to pick and choose their own programming.
Entire generations cut cable, if they even had cable to cut, and lived in a comparative paradise of not having to worry about paying hundreds of dollars for thousands of useless channels just so that they could get that one premium channel they actually wanted. Bloated cable companies that gleefully held us hostage with one-size-fits-all bundles stuffed with channels no one actually watched? They were on the down-and-out as we were sold choice.
For a while, it worked. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and other new entrants to the entertainment world carved out their own space, producing unique content for a fraction of the price. But revolutions have a habit of becoming the very thing they were designed to destroy. First, the cable giants created their own streaming services, with Paramount+, HBO Max, and Peacock dipping their toes in the world of their competitors.
Read the rest of my latest column for Washington Examiner here.