How Streaming Destroyed TV

Streaming became tv though.. just a better tv on demand. There's just as much if not more advertising and corporate involvement as ever.
 
Cable tv is trash. Tons of ad breaks and channels you don't need. Now you can choose what to watch immediately, and companies can target ads off the type of show. Win win for everyone
 
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Early streaming was a good value and added a lot of variety. When it became the trend more money got involved and mucked up the system. Now it all feels fragmented and overpriced.

The goal is to extract as many dollars from the consumer as possible.
 
The quality of product has dramatically declined
There's just so much stuff out there man, and there wasn't really that much great TV before TBH. Some of my favorite stuff is from pre-streaming, but streaming has also increased my ability to watch those shows any time I want.
 
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Alternate take: Streaming saved TV.
Before streaming everyone was doubling down on trash tier reality TV.

Streaming brought in money and with it real shows.
 
I think there are several connected issues here. Streaming, as in "on demand services" is fine, no real reason to be tied to the clock for a show, though Tivos solved that issue fairly well.

Subscription services, and the race to the bottom for 24/7 content at the expense of quality is another issue. At least in the cable era you had themed channels to allow for a siloed experience that gave the illusion of being catered to. Now you gotta bounce around 8 different services to get a steady diet of sci-fi, drama, or whatever and the diffusion of focus leads to a lot of shows feeling the same because different porudctuins all have the same 4 quadrant audience in mind, instead of a single distributor making sure there was diversity of their own product.

We have the DEI initiatives that really killed authenticity in story, promoted up a lot of folks who weren't ready, and instituted a lot of checklists that cripple creativity.

There is also a shift towards heavily serialized 'prestigue' tv with less consideration for making individual episodes that feel like contained stories, less focus on a proper ensemble cast, and skyrocketing budgets and production quaility leading to long gaps in the little story we do get. For some shows this is worth it, but most would probably benefit from 1/5 the money and 1/3 the time to shoot.

Cheaper shows with more risk is what we need.
 
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