The Rise of Streaming Services

              So far, I've talked about how streaming services have had good and bad impacts on society, and how streaming services have impacted the media landscape, but now it's time to look at what the future holds. Streaming services have been on an upwards trajectory to this point. For a while the industry was a plateau, with mainly Netflix and Hulu running the show. Disney+ launched in late 2019, which lit a spark in the industry with many other competitors launching their own platforms. According to Forbes , there are over 200 different streaming services available worldwide. In my experience, trends are usually short-lived. Growing popular is one thing, staying popular is another. So, what does the future of streaming services look like?              Back in my pros and cons blog, I mentioned that the quality of the product offered has been declining while prices are going up. We've already seen some potential...

              Streaming services have had a profound impact on the media landscape. They have made it much easier for consumers to access shows and movies anywhere, anytime. It has gotten to the point where certain movies are being released on the streaming platforms instead of in theatres. Thinking back to when streaming services first blew up, it came at a perfect time as the COVID pandemic hit shortly after. Consumers still had access to movies and shows, and media content could still be released. Many people now opt to wait for a movie to come out on a streaming platform instead of going to see it in theatres.               One way that you could look at this development is "technological determinism". Technological determinism is when technology can determine the development of social structure and cultural values. Before streaming services, if people wanted to watch something they had one of three options: ...

              In the first blog post, I established the overall topic of streaming services as well as the goal of these blogs. In this post, I will be taking a look at the pros and cons of streaming services. This will ideally help us understand what makes certain platforms more popular, as well as lay some groundwork for what the future looks like.               Streaming services have a lot of benefits, and obviously that's ideal for becoming popular and sticking around. Eric Deggans and NPR.org put together a list of what goes into choosing a streaming service. There are a few points that I took away from this article. The first is that some services are cheaper than others. But on the flip side, if you want an ad-free experience, it can be up to three times the cost of an experience with ads. Different services have come together to create a bundle to give consumers more services for a cheaper cost. A popul...

             Growing up, cable dominated the television market. Cable TV had the popular shows like SpongeBob and sporting events such as Monday Night Football. I personally didn't have Cable TV growing up, but my family members did, and I would always look forward to being able to watch Cartoon Network or ESPN. When I finally was able to get Cable TV, streaming services had started to take over. Netflix was already established as one of the top services alongside Hulu, but they were really the only services that were established. After Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019, the number of streaming services seemed to skyrocket. We saw different services that offered different shows. Paramount+ has shows from CBS and Paramount movies. HBO Max has shows from HBO max, cartoon network, and Warner Bros. Amazon Prime offers different prime video channels as well as exclusive coverage of "Thursday Night Football". Last, but certainly not least, Peacock offers...