The Wild-West Era of Streaming TV Is Ending
Cord cutters will soon need several subscriptions to watch all their favorite movies and shows—and the cost could look like the dreaded cable bill.
As details of the subscription services planned by each of America’s corporate-media powerhouses have trickled out, something has become clear: The past decade or so of online-streaming television was the medium’s wild-west era, a time when you could watch thousands of hours of content from every major studio for a fraction of the cost of cable. Between Netflix and Hulu, subscribers could watch most first-run movies and TV episodes on their computer for less than $20 a month., since the concept of the “water cooler” show that everyone watched at the same time had all but vanished.
