We've Built a Worse, More Expensive Cable
The subscription economy promised convenience. Instead, it quietly turned ownership into a monthly payment. We rent our software, unlock features in our cars, subscribe to AI, and "buy" movies we don't actually own. Streaming isn't an exception instead it's the blueprint for a future where access replaces possession, one recurring charge at a time.
Remember when people laughed at Blockbuster because you had to drive there, hope the movie was in stock, and remember to rewind the VHS?
Turns out Blockbuster wasn't the villain. It was merely inefficient.
Today's streaming economy is remarkably efficient…at extracting money.
We were promised a future where every movie ever made would live in one convenient place for ten dollars a month. Instead, we assembled the Avengers of monthly subscriptions. Netflix. Disney+. Hulu. Max. Peacock. Paramount+. Apple TV+. Prime Video. ESPN. Somewhere in there, the movie you wanted is still unavailable because licensing rights migrated to another platform sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Sports fans have it even worse. Watching one NFL season might require three different streaming services. Baseball is fragmented by regional networks. Soccer appears to have been distributed by someone throwing darts at a wall. Being a fan increasingly resembles a legal research project rather than entertainment.
The irony is that streaming solved the inconvenience of late fees by replacing them with subscription fees that never stop.
The deeper shift, however, isn't about television. It's about ownership.
Twenty years ago, if you bought a DVD, you owned it. You could lend it to a friend, sell it, or discover it fifteen years later in a dusty box and watch it immediately. Today, we "buy" digital movies that often aren't purchases at all. In many cases, we're purchasing a license that exists only as long as the platform's agreements and terms of service allow.
This isn't theoretical.
In 2023, Sony's television division lost licensing rights for hundreds of Discovery titles, causing purchased content to disappear from customers' libraries before public backlash led to a resolution. Consumers learned an uncomfortable lesson: "Buy" no longer necessarily means own.
Even music followed the same path. Spotify gave us access to nearly every song ever recorded, yet if an artist changes labels or a licensing agreement expires, playlists quietly develop holes overnight.
We didn't eliminate scarcity. We outsourced it.
Economists call this the shift from ownership to access. Companies love it because recurring revenue is predictable. Investors love it because subscriptions compound. Consumers...well, consumers rarely add up the total.
Most households now spend more on streaming than they once spent on cable, only with fewer guarantees. Instead of one expensive bill, we receive eight smaller ones that somehow feel less offensive.
Perhaps that's the greatest innovation of the streaming era. Not unlimited entertainment, but unlimited billing.
Technology usually makes things cheaper, simpler, and more permanent. Streaming achieved only one of these.
