It is Thursday night. Your favorite show just cut to commercial, and you have exactly two minutes to sprint to the kitchen, microwave some popcorn, probably trip on some furniture and book it back to the couch before the show starts again, feeling a rush when you made it back just in time.
Now? Those days are gone. You can open your phone, laptop or tablet and start a show at midnight on a Tuesday. You can binge all 12 seasons of your favorite sitcom in one run. With streaming, everything is one click away.
Streaming has completely changed the way people consume entertainment, especially the younger generation. With services like Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max leading the charge, students now have access to massive libraries of content, ranging from classic sitcoms to exclusive originals. Streaming offers a sense of freedom, comfort, and structure for its viewers.
Pros of streaming
One of the biggest pros? Control. Viewers can pause, rewind, skip intros or rewatch their favorite scenes as many times as they want. Want to rewatch all the “Harry Potter” movies in one weekend? Totally doable. Want to fall asleep to “The Office” every night for a month straight? Done.
“You can watch stuff everywhere; on your tablet, phone, computer as opposed to just TV,” senior Olivia Robertson said.
Robertson takes advantage of this versatility of streaming, to watch her favorite shows even when she is not home. For example, in pottery when she puts “How I Met Your Mother” on while working.
There is also the benefit of variety. Viewers have access to every genre, every mood and every era. Classics like “Friends”, “The Sopranos” and “Young Sheldon” sit alongside new hits like “Abbott Elementary” and “Wednesday”. Entire franchises live on one service, making it easy to do deep dives and binge-watch from start to finish.
“I like how the streaming industry gives the new generation access to older movies that wouldn’t be possible to see if they didn’t have those streaming services,” senior Nadia Pelayo said.
Pelayo has subscriptions to all the major streaming services including Netflix and Disney+. This comes in handy when her friends want to watch a show or movie and don’t have the platform for it.
Streaming also makes things more personal. Most streaming services provide a “shows you might like” section. Whether a true crime fanatic or a Studio Ghibli loyalist, there is something tailored to everyone; and usually a lot of it.
“Netflix just satisfies my hunger for true crime,” Robertson said. “I haven’t been able to find documentaries I like anywhere else.”
But what happens when someone’s favorite show is not available on the service they subscribe to? That’s where things get tricky.
Cons of streaming
Despite the large variety that streaming services have, many students are frustrated with how incomplete streaming libraries feel.
“Netflix is the star of having half the seasons of anything,” sophomore Peyton Sheare said.
This phenomenon of having only a select few seasons of a show is mainly due to licensing agreements, where different seasons of a show are owned by different companies. To buy out the entire show is too expensive for many services, so they only show a few seasons (often the first couple).
Sometimes, a rival streaming service will have ‘exclusive’ rights to a season or show, thus preventing another service from buying it to stream on their platform.
For example, Netflix has exclusive rights to “Squid Game,” “Bridgerton” and “Stranger Things,” all of which are ‘Netflix originals’: made by Netflix, streamed on Netflix and owned by Netflix.
This is especially prominent with major franchises being on only one platform. Star Wars, Disney, Marvel and Pixar for example, are almost exclusively on Disney+.
“It always [disappointed me] whenever my friends were watching “The Owl House” and I didn’t have Disney plus yet, so I couldn’t keep up,” senior Kaitlyn Tadros said.
Another example of this exclusivity on streaming are the numerous “originals.” While these shows are often extremely successful, it is difficult to access them unless viewers are subscribed to the right platform.
For example, “The Queen’s Gambit,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, not only shot up sales of chess sets worldwide, but brought in 62 million viewers in the first 28 days of release (a new record for Netflix). However, since the show was a Netflix original, those without a Netflix subscription were out of luck.
“I hate how originals aren’t open to other streaming websites,” sophomore Cristiana Shobe said. “All the Disney movies are only on Disney Plus. Netflix has no Disney movies, especially the nostalgic childhood Disney movies that I want to be watching.”
Another point of frustration students expressed about the streaming world is the cost. What once meant paying for one or two cable channels has now turned into managing 10 different streaming subscriptions, making it quite expensive just to watch a small portion of the content.
“[Streaming services] cost more than cable used to cost,” Tadros said. “Streaming services were meant to be the solution to cable, and they failed miserably.”
Amazon Prime and many other services even go as far as charging money to watch a show in full, only letting subscribers at the lowest tier watch the first few seasons for free (or sometimes only the first season).
“I am unable to watch my favorite show of all time completely straight through, because I have to pay Amazon Prime to get the full seasons of ‘Merlin,’” Robertson said. “Even then, they’ll give you the seasons but not all the episodes in the seasons.”
Beyond the Platforms: Finding Other Ways to Watch
A popular solution to these steep streaming prices (particularly popular with the younger generation) is a watch party. Friends can get together at one person’s house that has the streaming platform to watch a show or movie together.
“Whatever platform I don’t have, I know I have friends who have the ones that I don’t,” Robertson said. “And so I meet up with them and watch it together at their house.”
A more nostalgic response to this new era of entertainment is going analog. Students collect DVDs of their favorite movies or shows, rather than buying a streaming service to access just one of them.
“I have four or five seasons of ‘CSI: New York,’ [and] if there’s a movie I really like that I’m going to want to watch again, I find the DVD in a thrift store for only a couple bucks,” senior Rachel Cobb said.
At the end of the day, streaming plays a big part in its viewers lifestyle. Despite its challenges, it offers a variety of advantages that keep its subscribers watching.
“I feel like streaming services are really great and accessible,” senior Olivia Davis said. “[But] I prefer going out to movies or finding shows on cable. It’s more convenient and there’s so many series I have to catch up on.” Davis said.
