Paramount Plus, Disney Plus, Hulu plus Netflix … Streaming’s return to mediocracy

Freddy Haug
3 min readMar 5, 2021

Hi, my name is Freddy Haug and I pay for half of my family’s streaming platforms.

Yesterday was the first birthday of Paramount Plus, which means it is now time for you to cough up another 10+ dollars a month to watch some Spongebob or something.

You are spending more for less
Kathleen Coxwell

The Problem

We are paying more for less. Way more. Way less.

Somehow, I have gone from using the internet to break away from cable and it’s archaic system, to an internet that has me paying for new subscriptions and heightened subscription costs every year.

Large companies began seeing how much they could get away with back when Hulu began development circa 2006.

From that point forward we have been dealing with two consistently growing factors on the streaming industry:

  1. Less choice on platforms
  2. More platforms to choose from

Here in early 2021 our best bet is to wait for Disney to buy up all remaining entertainment studios and release all the content under Disney Plus.

So what doesn’t Disney own today?

NBC, Universal and Time Warner

And, who helped develop Hulu?

Disney, NBC, Universal and Time Warner

Screenshot from Hulu article on Wikipedia

Hulu acquisitions between 2006 and 2024.

The Solution

So it looks like it is time to pay one huge price that gives me access to every streaming service again, like cable through Comcast and AT&T used to be. Or maybe we should move towards the Walmart/Amazon approach and just begin paying for content one stream at a time.

Seemingly nostalgic picture of Blockbuster

The Opportunity

blockchain digital ownership.

We are seeing a huge rise in popularity of Cryptos and Blockchain. A lot of popular applications are used to provide authenticity of ownership over digital media now. We may even find ourselves back to a world of Blockbusters and Movie Theaters.

Although that is starting to sound like a good thing compared to where we are today …

Undeniable proof that we live in an alternate universe screenshot from Architectural Digest

The Conclusion

Thank you so much for reading my work, I post weekly so please follow me for more content about the ironic world of technology. If you have any feedback I would appreciate that as well.

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Freddy Haug

Software Engineer with interests in Politics, Economics, Technology and Philosophy. I have worked in Startups around Florida for the last 3 years