The streaming wars are about advertising dollars, not about one service ruling above all others.
More people “streamed” television in July 2022 than watched on traditional cable TV, according to Nielsen. That’s a big deal. Because it means streaming no longer is the future — it’s the present.
And I suppose that matters. The question is to whom. Not so much me.
I got rid of cable TV years ago. Even made a video about it. It wasn’t particularly hard. It wasn’t particularly brave. It was, however, a good bit less expensive. (Note to self: See if your subscriptions to seven streaming services are still worth it.)
But here’s the thing: The whole “streaming wars” phrase is a misnomer. It’s a made-up phenomenon meant for headlines and chyrons and has led to some seriously bad online posts meant for Google, not normal people. Pitting Netflix against Disney+, or Hulu against Apple TV+ — or any other combination you can come up with — is just silly. Other than for financial reasons (which are very real), there’s absolutely no reason you can’t subscribe to multiple streaming services. You can make a choice, or not.
Then there’s the fact that there’s streaming, and then there’s streaming. It’s a bit of a false equivalency to say that YouTube TV is on the same playing field as Disney+. It’s not. They are discrete services doing very different things.
