I have been watching TV shows and movies for a long time. First, it was through my sister's VHS recordings of Doctor Who and X-Files, then it was through Sam Goody and Suncoast. By the early 2000s, companies began releasing series by the season instead of by the episode, making binge-watching shows much easier. It was easy to get a season of The Sopranos at the library. The biggest complaint about binge-watching a show is that people have to watch it multiple times for fear of being spoiled.

I don't pay attention to that. I learned a long time ago how to space watch a really good show out to maximize the Episodic thrills and that's why I enjoy the show so much. My issue with the current model is that it doesn't account for shared universes and weird watching orders. It doesn't account for older shows which aired in different order from which they were produced, leading to weird story inconsistencies as characters get introduced long after they show up in shows. It should be an easy problem to fix.

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Is streaming just becoming cable again? Julia Alexander thinks so

They are competing to be the top streaming service in the United States. It wasn't how the streaming wars were supposed to be waged It was thought that streaming would give us more choice, not only in what we watch, but also in how we watch it. Instead of new ways to engage with the shows we want to watch, the streaming services are focused on acquiring new franchises. The third row of the car was occupied by people who were concerned about the experience.

This has led to weird situations like the lack of support for 4K andHDR in a lot of content across these streamers, as well as franchises moving from platform to platform with no fanfare. Churn, where people are constantly subscribing to services and then dropping them when they've watched the content they've wanted to watch, seems to have become such an expected part of the business for streamers that there's little emphasis on actually keeping people on the platforms for longer than that

Concern for the actual experience seems to have taken a seat in the third row of the car.

Sometimes I wonder if any of the people running these platforms actually use the little tweaks that streaming services refuse to use. It's difficult to binge watch older content. If you want to watch Star Trek: The Original Series, you can either buy it or stream it. Air date order is what you will be watching in both cases.

It is even harder to watch Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. If you don't know where to look for a guide to figure out the viewing order of the big crossovers, you'll miss important parts of the story.

Julia Alexander told me that the streaming experience was better than cable and that it allowed for personalization. It's counter to what makes streaming so great that services don't allow for personalization.

services don’t allow for this personalization, and it’s counter intuitive to what makes streaming so great.

It shouldn't be difficult to personalize. This is a problem that can be solved by using a technology that has been around for a long time.

Alexander said that creating a more personal, intimate viewing experience increases satisfaction and makes the inherent value of a platform more obvious. Allowing for more personalized curation allows companies to keep customers' attention month after month.

The streamers haven't done it despite what should be a low lift. You can't choose to watch Star Trek: The Original Series in a fan-preferred order, instead of the air date order that front-loads some of the series' most macho and sexist episodes. The order was selected by a group of executives who were scared of the science fiction show and wanted to entice people with aliens in bikinis and gods who like to engage in fistfights.

allowing for more personalized curation goes a long way

The Star Wars universe could benefit from a playlists that allows you to watch content in the order it was filmed, rather than the order it was written in. Are you supposed to watch the movie before the show? Where does Obi-Wan Kenobi fall compared to other groups? It would be better if Disney+ could help you figure that out. There are a lot of franchises that would benefit from a lot of different things.

It shouldn't be hard to queue up the shows in the order you prefer on Paramount+'s playlists. It would require streamers to stop looking at how many prestige shows they can get from established franchises and start thinking about what made streaming so attractive to begin with.