The Benefits of Streaming

Written By Grace Rietta.It is a very interesting time to be a consumer of media. We are currently in an industrial revolution of sorts, with the eruption of social media, new technology and streaming taking over the entertainment world. We are consuming media like never before, as we now have the ability to take our TVs with us through our phones and laptops. This new influx of technology and accessibility to media at this scale is revolutionary, and is looking like it’s the future of how we are to consume our entertainment.While some may make the point of saying cable is more accessible, the majority of our youth consumes their entertainment from their phones, making streaming way more accessible to them.. Kids aren’t coming home and waiting until 6 p.m. for their favorite shows to come on, they are riding the bus and watching it or are sitting with a laptop in their rooms while the TV is being occupied by a show that doesn’t interest them. It is very common for people to have their phones on them at all times, meaning that they constantly have access to streaming, making it far more accessible than cable is.Furthermore, cable may give you 999 channels but in reality you probably only use a small fraction of those, so why pay for all 999 when you could buy specifically the ABC streaming app or HBO Go for that smaller amount of money and for the shows you will actually watch? Streaming gives the consumer the luxury of being able to pick and chose to their liking as it is a highly customizable platform. It is said that streaming services do not give the kind of variety that cable does, but services like Hulu and HBO Go have shows and movies that are being shown on television currently, available on their website the same day or soon after it has been aired. Besides it being highly personalized, Netflix in particular also gives the consumer the luxury of being able to watch more than one episode if they choose to. You don’t have to wait a week to see the next episode and you can pace yourself at whatever speed you would like. So now with streaming services, you only pay for the channels you want with the shows you watch, the service is personally catered to your likes and you can watch as many shows and episodes as you would like.Streaming provides on-demand content with a flat monthly fee for viewers to consume as much entertainment as they want. Using consumer data, they can better customize and personalize the consumer’s homepage and browsing options based on their past likes and watches. This creates a less intimidating amount of entertainment to sift through and more accessibility to content that would appeal to them. While cable networks do collect consumer data, they use it for research and for advertising, not for the personal benefit of each individual consumer.A major flaw in the streaming system is having a delayed release for the current shows and movies airing on TV. There are however, there are streaming original shows and series that are exclusive to those streaming services. Also, services like Hulu and HBO Go do offer the ability to watch shows as soon they have aired as well as original shows. These new original shows are also giving creators a new way of releasing entertainment, creating a whole new platform. Seasons are released all at once with minimal to no commercials, which is more more efficient way to watch your show with less interruptions. And if there are commercials, they are a fraction of what it’s like when watching cable TV. In addition to having these originals that are exclusive to that streaming service, it also creates a loyal fan base not only to these shows but to their service as well, boosting views on the original shows and other shows that are available on that platform. Streaming also gets knocked for having items being removed after a period of time, but this also happens on cable as well. Cable may have reruns of shows, but it most likely won’t be in order and you can’t show reruns of every show so at some point you are going to have to remove certain shows after a while. Also, streaming devices also allow their audiences to find older shows that they may have missed while they were still on TV, and get the chance to go and watch it from Season 1. This creates a comeback for lots of shows that were popular but died off either because they ended, loss popularity or got canceled. As soon as they get released on these streaming services and everyone is talking about them again, they gain back a new active audience that they wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the re-release online . Giant companies such as Apple are banking on the fact that streaming is going to become our new source of content as they no longer provide disk drives in their computers because the majority of people use streaming as their main source of consumption of media. While I understand the nostalgia for times before the internet, streaming is the future of entertainment and I think it has a lot more to offer. It is much more personalized, has easy accessibility on the go and has the ability to cater to your likes to find shows that will appeal to you specifically.