Streaming services.

Used by many, loved by all or so it seems.

It’s the option most all have when you get tired of cable or if you want to indulge in a show that doesn’t confine you to what seems like endless commercials.

Streaming services have been in recent news lately due to the new issues that have been brought to customer’s attention. Streaming services have raised prices, cracked down on password sharing and merged with each other –all of which have impacted customers and not in ways that make them happy. Streaming services have seemed to cause more headaches than they are supposed to. They are supposed to be better alternatives to cable, but it seems like they are causing the same problems that cable companies seem to spring on their customers as well.

The Effects Merges Have on Customers

When quarantine first started for the pandemic, people were at home more. Whilst being at home people became bored because they sat at home all day and weren’t able to be around others who weren’t a part of their families. So streaming services became a huge hit with streaming services hitting over one billion subscribers due to people being stuck at home.

But there was a streaming service that was on ads everywhere. Quibi. It was marketed as the new streaming service that everyone would want, it had its own original series and more and it was extremely affordable. The cost would be $5 per month with ads and $8 per month without ads. But unfortunately, just as soon as it came it was taken away. Quibi shut down after just six months of operation. One reason for the service’s downfall was its low cost– the rate at which they were charging was not sustainable for the service to generate revenue.

Quibi was an example of how if companies don’t merge with one another or raise prices they too will not survive.

Dustin Lyons saidhow he and his friends navigate through all of the streaming services together.

”I understand companies merging for financial reasons, you kind of expect change is going to happen when you get older for better or for worse,” Lyons said. “ What I and my friends do is I buy a couple of [streaming services], and they do the same, and we share the passwords.”

Streaming Services Increases their Prices

DisneyPlus increased by $3 monthly from $10.99 to $13.99, Netflix Basic increased by $2 monthly and Netflix Premium by $3. The prices don’t seem bad, but they do add up once you have so many, and it becomes too expensive for them all.

The unanswered question now is how this affects loyal customers. How long until they get fed up with these changes? That’s what starts to linger in the back of my mind as a fellow streaming service user because all of these changes usually seem to come with increased prices as well.

“It becomes a waste of the platform that you use, because some shows are on more than one [streaming service],” Senior Savanna Kincaid said. “I can cancel one because I don’t see the need in having both. The platform doesn’t seem to get better with the raised prices either which is disappointing.”

The concerns only seem to grow because if prices are being raised and the services aren’t improving what is the reason for even increasing prices?

Streaming Services Cracking Down on Password Sharing

A couple of months ago, Netflix implemented a new way of monitoring password sharing, if you aren’t in the same household as the head of the account you get kicked out of the account holder’s account and have to get your own Netflix account.

I can see the password monitoring that Netflix implemented may cause issues for seniors next year because most will be leaving their homes, and there is a possibility they will locked out of their family’s account.

College students aren’t known for having money, so the predicament that may be faced is having to buy another separate account from their family’s account which is ineffective when their parents already have one.

“I will probably use [streaming services] a lot more because [in college we] probably won’t have cable in our dorms,” Senior Donovan Smith said. “My parents probably wouldn’t mind getting another account for me.”

But your parents don’t have to buy another account for you because it’s not like they are keeping it. After all, you still are using it. They may have to open another account just for you because you want to watch the service, but you aren’t in the same house as your parents which seems so ludicrous.

“I have Netflix,” Senior Aaron TItlebaum said.  “I don’t use cable, but I have Roku. I watch Netflix once a month, but under today’s economy it’s understandable why prices are being raised, but I don’t like it as a consumer.”

During the writer’s strike, this year streaming services have been an alternative because it is a great source to turn to for entertainment, and streaming services provided just that– a short-term relief to something where the end didn’t seem anywhere in sight.

But now that the strike is over and shows will continue to shoot and be released, where does this leave streaming services?

“I don’t know what these streaming services are thinking,” Kinicaid said. “But [streaming services] aren’t what they used to be, and I question on whether I should cancel some of my own.”