I was scrolling through Netflix the other night because I was too tired to do something an honestly I just wanted to metaphorically chew on something interesting while tucked up on the sofa. The more I scrolled the more it crept up on me there wasnt anything interesting on Netflix, at least not something I wanted to spend my precious few hours of downtime on. And then it dawned on me, I have been doing the exact same thing night after night and never actually found something to watch other than reruns of series or movies Ive already seen a zillion times. Same thing with Disney+ and the same with Amazon Prime. Is it just me or are there preciously few films and series worth watching these days? I remember some years back when there was always something interesting on streaming services, well, at least interesting enough to spend time over. I get the feeling the streaming services and above all Netflix had a lot more interesting stuff before. Is it only me or are there more people out there that get the distinctive feeling streaming is more and more becoming like the old days when there were tens or hundreds of tv channels and there was absolutely nothing worthwhile going on? It certainly feels so and when combing the web I see quite a few articles about the subject matter and people seem to agree there are numerous reasons for this icky blandness but above all people seem to agree that the golden age of streaming is over by now and streaming services are more and more starting to look like cable or sat tv which in itself begs a definition on its own. Why are streaming services starting feel like cable or sat tv? To understand that we might need to go back quite a few years when Netflix was new and the huge promise it made which was lots of quality content for low price. I remember in those early days Netflix indeed held itself up on the promise and thy had lots of interesting content, mostly sourced from the big studios but Netflix was bold and started making their own content available, mostly in form of series and yes, they were like a breath of fresh air, something new and interesting. They in fact took the media world by storm and gained immense popularity and Netflix certainly gained alot on it. And since the media business is a competitive one others would follow soon both in establishing their own streaming services and produce content. At a blink of an eye there was an abundance of streaming services and each of them had something interesting. House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, The Crown, Stranger Things and later The Boys are but a few of series which would become household names. Im sure there are many others which are equally famous and popular but there is no doubt some of these series were landmark content which contributed to media changing forever. It was indeed a joyous time to be a streamer and the best part was it was quality content at affordable price. At a time I subscribed to four services but it was still cheaper than cable or sat tv. For someone who is a terminal movie and streaming binge watcher these were golden days and somehow I thought this was a permanent change. There would always be abundance of quality content and low price and we were proverbially saved. But, and this is a big but, as the years flew by it seemed the abundance of content promised wasnt quite keeping up and soon enough I started to exhaust the streaming services. Interesting series and movies became fewer and fewer and when it came to series they started shrinking in size, fewer episodes per season and it would get longer and longer time between the seasons. Did I mention the prices started going up? So here I was with four streaming services, having exhausted two of them to my taste and finding myself more and more in the situation of simply waiting a year or more for a new season of anything interesting. It started to get irritating so first I cut one service and soon after I cut another although I occationally revisit it when a new season of anything worthwhile appears. Now I was down to two services and it didnt take long until I had exhausted yet another one so off with it as well and now Im down to one and it seems to be exhausted as well but I need one service so Im keeping it for now although the quality of the content has become horrible. Cheap documentaries or reality shows and an endless stream of cheap completely uninteresting series, many with similar themes so one is left to wonder if the streaming service has become like Bollywood where it is customary to release two to three films on the same story. What was once a stronghold of content libraries has been reduced to a third rate dumpster of media trash. Oh, how bland and uninteresting it is and how much of a desert the streaming landscape has become. Are we to roam this land forever now in search of the rare pool of interesting content? Before we despair too much lets make one thing clear, if streaming is going the ways of cable and sat tv then its only time until people get fed up and there is a mass exodus. We dont know yet what it will be but I have an idea of what could come next. However, lets self reflect a bit first cause we the viewers are just as much part of the problem as the media industry is. You see, in the beginning when streaming was new and fresh people flocked to the newcomers mostly because their content was better, it was cheaper, it was readily available around the clock and streaming introduced a whole new concept of media consumption, binge watching. This behavior is often underrated as there has been tendency to look at binge watching as some sort of guilty pleasure but with time it has become a genuine part of media consumption. It is with a twist possible to say that with the advent of the streaming media the perfect media orgy was created. Think of orgies in ancient Rome except its media. You get the gist. And this media orgy would become the norm due to overabundance of content which was in the beginning of great quality. So people gorged themselves and their appetite for content knew no boundaries. We the viewers created a huge demand and we were picky. We demanded quality content fit for every day. The media companies were all too happy to tap into this upcoming market and it was the general belief of both the viewers and the media companies that this market would have few limits in size or capacity and thats where it all starts to crumble. The appetite and the market, as big and overwhelming as they seem still cost money and it didnt take too long for the companies to understand the finances of the streaming market coupled with the audience demands didnt make sense business wise in the long run. The total amount of subscribers is a finite number and thus there is a finite amount of money to throw around and since the media market is notoriously fickle, creating content always involves risk and its often in tangent with the ambition of the media project. So the media companies eventually went from being fairly progressive and risk taking when the market was new to being increasingly risk averse when the market slowly but surely saturated and reached for the tried and tested handbook on cable and sat tv regarding how to get as many eyeballs as possible no matter the quality because in the end business is business and there is money to be made. In simple terms of the above, viewers and media companies created the perfect storm but as it is with any weather, it doesnt last and the golden age of television had its run but it seems to be over by now. So, whats next. In the beginning of the blog I mentioned I had an idea so let me elaborate a bit on it. Mind you, it is not THE idea or necessarily the best idea but it is an idea which has its roots in the past but uses that to create something new. Now some of you might remember the times when a thing called video rental was popular and everywhere. To explain for those of you who are too young to remember it was basically a store with rows and rows of covers of films and series and the idea was you collected what you wanted to watch, went to the counter and rented your film or series for a limited time to watch at home. The rental time varied but was somewhere between twenty four to forty eight hours. After you had watched the content you returned the tape or disc and if you felt so wandered around the store for new content. As limiting and somewhat arcane the video rental sounded it had a couple of cards up its sleeve. First, it was relatively cheap, second larger video rentals had a formidable selection cause most rentals tried to be broad in their appeal to customers, third, there existed specialized video rentals which would cater to more niche tastes of the viewer and fourth, the more respectable rentals replenished their stock quite frequently, often on weekly basis and again, their aim was broad so practically everybody found at least something to watch. I was a huge fan of video rentals and was lucky that in my area there were a couple of decent sized ones and one or two specialized so I would be a frequent guest, even a card carrying regular since my appetite, especially for films was insatiable and since the video rental I frequented most added to their already vast library every week I was never out of content. At the hight of my film watching I must have gone through five to ten films each week for months and I rarely watched the same film twice. And this in itself is interesting cause it shows a a repeated pattern and a huge appetite. I think a lot of the attraction video rentals had to me was the ability to wander around and check out all the titles in peace and narrowing down what I wanted to watch and then take a concious decision on a title or three. Simply put, it was the freedom of choice and taking the time to decide what to watch. This is in stark contrast to modern streaming services where an algorithm chooses for you or the layout is set in a way which makes you look categorically instead of newer films first and then older which was common with video rentals. In any case, I think the video rental format is hugely attractive because it a) gives the viewer total control over selecting the content, b) a video rental always had to ensure a good selection of content to stay in business and c) content didnt disappear after certain time, a film could be available for perhaps tfour years as the rental grew its library. However, in modern times where physical media is disappearing it is out of the question to talk about establishing a traditional video rental. It simply wouldnt work. Players are getting scarce and the younger generations are used to getting their content at their finger tips. With that in mind the idea of an online video rental springs to mind. That in itself already partially exists on some streaming services but Im talking about a complete video rental online with a vast permanent library of content, a Media Super Market. A site offering thousands of titles on permanent basis, reasonably priced and with a rental model tailored to the modern needs. A singular site where all film and content studios agree to put aside their differences and create a common Media Super Market where they offer their vast content libraries. For sure, its a tall order. In todays competitive atmosphere the studios are more sworn enemies but it could happen. It could be a joint venture between them, sharing the cost and reaping the benefits. The reality is most major studios have content libraries which are so huge a normal person would never be able to watch them all in one life time. So how about a common market place where all of us can rent our favorite films and find new content at our leisure? All thats needed is the will and the foresight of realizing streaming is already dead in its current form. Something has to change. The current platforms are either going to die slowly or be consumed by third rate slop. Either way, something has to change and I think an online content rental based on broad taste with vast libraries which are replenished regularly could be a key. Its going to be a joint effort, not just the content providers but also we viewers who would have the possibility to choose what we want and not just go along with it as is with the current streaming services. Perhaps a Media Super Market is the way forward. What do you think?