Remember being excited about new streaming services? A decade ago, when Netflix launched in the UK, it felt like a bracing (and cheap) antidote to expensive DVD box sets. Rather than shelling out £20 every time you wanted to watch a single season of Breaking Bad, you could access every episode – plus seemingly every episode of every other show that anyone liked – for £5 a month.
That golden age now seems like ancient history. Today’s streaming landscape is cluttered and overly partitioned. Swarms of competing streaming services have flooded in to carve up the market, each with a hefty subscription fee, and the result can be only bad news for the viewer. Now, if you want to keep abreast of all the buzzy new shows, you require (at a minimum) Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+, Now and BritBox – a collection that adds up to more than £800 a year. Want to add in sports or family accounts, or anything remotely niche on top of that? Great, but it will cost you.
