You mean you don't sign up for all of Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+, AppleTV+, HBO Max, Peacock, ESPN+, and Amazon Prime?? You really should, it's so convenient juggling subscriptions and apps for everything individually.
But don't stop there. You want some documentaries? Throw in Curiosity Stream, it's pretty cheap and you'll get Nebula for free! You'll want BBC Select too, though. Oh, you like Anime? Here's Crunchyroll. A horror fan? Don't forget to sign up for Shudder!
Or you could just log into your VPN and go to Pirate Bay. I mean, if you were a dirty awful criminal.
Ignoring the price issue for a moment. This is not a better situation. We have gone from one platform with all content with adverts (cable), to one platform with a lot of more relevant content and no adverts (Netflix), to N platforms with some content and some adverts (platform dependent).
Even if you were subscribed to every single streaming service it's now a nightmare to manage, not only do you have N payments you now have N different apps to search/browse.
Say you have 4 shows you like release on a Monday across 3 different apps. You now have to navigate your way through multiple different apps (with wildly different UIs) just to watch the things you want.
With some nice automated piracy they just download get indexed by your platform of choice (Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, Raw filesystem etc..) and they are all available in one place with minimal fucking about.
Sure you could achieve the same with some kind of unified stream aggregator UI (kodi can do this already to an extent) but that'll never fly long term with all providers as the streaming companies would miss out on that sweet sweet userdata (only having what was watched/when/how long) and control.
The only real benefit streaming platform have right now is the lack of ads vs. cable. But remember when cable launched? It didn't have ads either and I wouldn't expect streaming providers to remain ad free either. I give it 5 years before at least 50% have ads somewhere whether in the UI or before/during/after streams.
So then we're back to piracy providing the best service to the consumer, ad free, unified UI, and most importantly all the content.
I'm honestly unsure why the music industry hasn't splintered into a million streaming services and Spotify reigns supreme. While Spotify is terrible for Artists it is a bargain for consumers. Imagine having to load up 2+ separate applications to listen to a single artists back catalogue simply because they changed labels at some point.
But don't stop there. You want some documentaries? Throw in Curiosity Stream, it's pretty cheap and you'll get Nebula for free! You'll want BBC Select too, though. Oh, you like Anime? Here's Crunchyroll. A horror fan? Don't forget to sign up for Shudder!
Or you could just log into your VPN and go to Pirate Bay. I mean, if you were a dirty awful criminal.