For a moment, it seemed like the streaming apps were the things that could save us from the hegemony of cable TV—a system where you had to pay for a ton of stuff you didn’t want to watch so you could see the handful of things you were actually interested in.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/K4EIh
I mean, you just defined YouTube. It has both live content and on demand, historical and real time, it covers a much broader range than any cable station will ever be able to, and it’s single price to not have ads. You don’t get charged for the service and still have to see ads.
Well, I was trying to give a broad enough description to cover literally every video service, so mission accomplished!
My point is that every service will have different items in each category, and that splitting up the world’s catalog of content into many different services ends up breaking down the economic benefit of bundling. The YouTube bundle is different from the Netflix bundle, which is different from the Apple TV+ bundle, which is different from Disney+ and Hulu, which is different from Max (formerly HBO Max). YouTube has live content, but if you want to watch a specific basketball game live, you’ll have to subscribe to the service with that (and you’ll have to endure ads and product placement as part of that game). And maybe that’s not the $15/month YouTube Premium, but is instead the $73/month YouTube TV.