Streaming Services: Who Will Be the Next Netflix

Breeanna Pham, Staff Writer

Considering Netflix’s new regulations—putting a new system in place where a user will have to log in every 31 days—there are many people who will most likely be leaving the platform. Because this will most likely lead to the eventual collapse of Netflix, there are many platforms that are waiting to take their place: HBO Max, Hulu, and Peacock. Although each streaming service has their own notable attribute, there are quite a few pros and cons that come with each.

 HBO Max has many popular TV shows that are well favored amongst teens. These titles include Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, and Pretty Little Liars. However, even though they have so many great titles on their site, there are many problems that  they have yet to address. One being, their horrible site maintenance–many consumers using the site have noticed that it has not been working up to par recently, and there are many disturbances when trying different smart TVs like Roku. From personal experience, I have noticed that the app version of this site needs quite a lot of updating–from the app being a little bit glitchy, and the downloaded shows not being viewable on an airplane. Along with this, on tablets and cell phones, when watching shows, the fast-forward button must be directly clicked, which can become quite annoying after a while. This feature should be fixed soon, considering how much money HBO Max is profiting from their popular titles. With all of these cons combined, it can be quite a deterrent, considering how competitive services are much more “advanced” than they are. This streaming service is technically the most expensive, being $9.99/ month with ads. 

Hulu has been a staple of many people’s households, being that they are the oldest of the three streaming services being spoken of. On the technical side, there are no great cons of them that are noticeable. However, one thing Hulu is quite tricky about is their advertisement of the shows they have available for viewing. Although their cheapest plan is $7.99/ month (with ads), the way they advertise it is very off-putting. To begin, not all titles that are available on Hulu are in the cheapest plan–additional $60 plus dollars are needed to watch all of the more (objectively) entertaining shows. The $60 plus additional dollars will allow for the purchase of live TV. However, due to this false advertisement of allowing consumers to assume $7 will allow them “full” access to the entire site, many people may buy it without knowing that they won’t be given access to all the features. The additional $60 plus allows users to more shows in their plan that require cable to watch. So, although it is technically the second most affordable, if you want to watch all (or most) of the good shows on the site, an additional $62.00 will be needed to watch everything you want. 

Finally, is the site Peacock.Although they are the cheapest of the three streaming services being spoken about ($4.00/ month with ads), they are the worst streaming service available. With the exception of The Office, and Modern Family, there aren’t many great shows that stand out within the site. Although the argument can be made that they are still a relatively new site, HBO Max has been available for a similar amount of time as Peacock and has quite a few more memorable shows than Peacock. However, this is predicted to change in the next few months to years as they improve. 

Given all this information, all of these streaming services individually have quite a commendable number of memorable TV Shows. However, given Peacock’s small collection of  interesting titles, they are most likely out of the running for being the “next Netflix”. And given the price point of Hulu to view any decent titles, it will probably be out of the running as well. However, unlike any of the other streaming services, with the “cheap” price of $69.99, live TV is available for that additional cost. So, given price, and the amount of good TV shows, HBO Max has the most potential to be the “next Netflix,” given that they do technically have all of the good titles that were originally on Netflix on their site.

 

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