Sometimes, less is more. Especially when it comes to deciding what to watch on your night off.
Wrestling coach Cory Apps and millions of other streaming subscribers are becoming familiar with the unveiling of proprietary streaming services and will soon be spending a lot more time making decisions about what to watch.
With the release of new sites such as Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, NBC’s Peacock and HBO Max coming out in 2020, the decade-long war between cable services and bigger streaming devices such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime has only intensified. Channels like ESPN, Starz, and NBC are also attempting to come out with their own services.
Reaching a decision on the amount and types of streaming services to commit to rely on three main factors: cost, reliability and content.
Math teacher Alan Altschuler said although he has a Netflix account, he has also kept his FIOS cable.
“I’ve always felt that the reliability would be better on cable and you’d get more bandwidth,” Altschuler said.
Science teacher Luke Konopka does not have cable and instead uses solely Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Konopka said he would consider adding a new streaming service to his collection as long as the price seemed reasonable.
“The goal is that I want it to be all less than the price for cable,” Konopka said. “I would probably cancel one of the [current] subscriptions […] before I get another one.”
Another circumstance when one may switch streaming services is if that service displayed a collection of shows that appealed to the viewer. For Apps, his favorite TV show, “How I Met Your Mother,” used to be on Netflix but then moved to Hulu.
“That’s when I decided to redo my phone contract so I would have Hulu for free just so I could watch that show,” Apps said.
Though if it were not for the phoncontract, Apps said it would not be worth it to pay for another streaming service solely for one or two shows.
“If all of a sudden a streaming service redid their catalog and the choices are much better then yeah [I would consider paying for it], but it’s kind of a give and take,” Apps said.
Apps describes the addition of streaming services as give and take due to too many options.
“How many times a night do you just sit on Netflix and you’re like, ‘I don’t know what to watch’ and you’re just scrolling through and next thing you know it’s been 45 minutes,” Apps said. “So that’s the problem with [too many] subscriptions, there’s that oversaturation of content so it’s hard to decide.”
Though the excitement of all the new streaming services can persuade someone to add it to their collection, being mindful of the cost, reliability and content of that service will help people make a reasonable decision.