In recent years, television and streaming services have become a jumbled mess that has only begun to decline as time has gone by. 

One moment, Netflix is advertising a show they have added to their roster, and mere months later it is wiped from the site entirely. Streaming services are constantly playing hot potato with different series that have no need to be exclusive to just one site.

On multiple occasions I have found that a show I was invested in was purged from Netflix for no apparent reason. Live television can get away with eliminating shows because there are limits to the amount of runtime they have available. With streaming services, these limits are nonexistent, so deleting a show from the roster is completely useless and only serves to disappoint viewers who spent their hard-earned money for the service. 

After Netflix began to crack down on sharing accounts in May of 2023 and introduced an ad tier shortly after in November, the appeal of services that provide a wide array of movies and shows without the nuances of live television began to diminish. What was once a smarter alternative to pesky commercial breaks and scheduling recordings became a messy maze of ad-riddled movies that could vanish from sight at the drop of a hat.

The ad tier, for example, is a nearly nine dollars cheaper alternative to the standard plan. Aside from the mid-watch interruptions, the plans are near identical, yet the price difference is staggering. Part of what boosted Netflix’s reputation was their lack of commercials, but it is only stooping lower with each new policy they adopt. At least with live TV you can record programs ahead of time and fast-forward through the ads later on, but with Netflix the ads are often unskippable. 

Additionally, Netflix has locked sharing an account behind a paywall. The nine dollar difference between the ad tier and the standard tier includes the ability to share accounts, as the standard tier allows for one additional member to use the account. Although the reason it was implemented is understandable, the accessibility of the site is more limited than before.

Every argument thus far has disregarded the kicker, that being how only two devices can use Netflix at a time. In order to allow more than two devices to run Netflix under one account, one must purchase the $22.99 / month premium subscription instead.

Although live television is not a miracle in comparison to the readily-available streaming services that provide a multitude of shows with few catches, Netflix has begun to shrink the gap between these two mediums. Regardless of which option people prefer, it is only logical to assess that streaming services, most notably Netflix, are morphing more and more into cash-grabbing schemes that defeat their initial purpose.