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These are some complaints about the streaming video landscape

Savannah Peters Feb 6, 2023
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According to new research, consumers are overwhelmed by the number of streaming options. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

These are some complaints about the streaming video landscape

Savannah Peters Feb 6, 2023
Heard on:
According to new research, consumers are overwhelmed by the number of streaming options. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images
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COPY

Netflix’s customers were enraged last week by news that it would crack down on password sharing. The company has since walked that back, saying it posted the new restrictions accidentally.

But according to research from Oxford Economics, streaming customers have a lot more to be grumpy about — like too many different streaming options and somehow, nothing to watch.

If “The Sopranos” ushered in the Golden Age of TV, shows like “Stranger Things” and “White Lotus” are marks of the surplus era, “where we are so overwhelmed,” said Brandon Katz, who follows the entertainment industry for Parrot Analytics.

Even five years ago, he says most customers only needed one or two subscriptions. “It wasn’t really quite the ‘hunger games’ of entertainment via internet delivery that we have today,” Katz said.

In today’s fractured landscape, Katz said couch potatoes like himself have to shell out a lot of money to keep up with the most popular shows and movies.

According to Sundus Alfi at Oxford Economics, all those options don’t necessarily translate to customer satisfaction.

“When you sign off work and you try to find something to watch, takes more than 10 minutes, you get frustrated then you’re done with this,” Alfi said.

Oxford Economics’ survey of customers found they want everything in one place.

“Whatever streaming service I’m consuming my shows or movies, on that home page I want to see my music, my e-commerce, maybe messaging apps,” Alfi said.

To hold on to subscribers, she says streamers will have to make themselves indispensable.

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