Lost in the Stream: Unraveling the Paradox of Content Overload on Streaming Platforms

A study conducted by Nielsen in 2022, revealed the average streaming service subscriber in the US spends an astonishing 23 minutes per day simply browsing through content options before settling on something to watch. This amounts to nearly 8.5 hours per month spent in the daunting task of decision-making.  This begs the question: do we truly desire such control, or would a little assistance in navigating this vast sea of content be more appreciated? 

With an abundance of content available across numerous platforms, we, as consumers, have the power of control. However, this power also brings the burden of having to do all the work ourselves. 

It’s reminiscent of supermarkets where we used to rely on cashiers to scan our shopping, but now, with self-service checkouts, we must scan and bag our items, all the while facing the constant embarrassment of encountering errors and needing assistance from a human when the red light flashes. 

Do we truly desire this level of control? Is there merit in having a bit more assistance on our quest to find something to watch, instead of being inundated with options from every provider? 

Having multiple subscriptions but still being unable to choose what to watch is a problem that is all too familiar. How long do we spend searching and searching, only to eventually end up back on terrestrial TV watching something that is on anyway, or just end up on our phone scrolling and scrolling for something to entertain us? 

Many people have resorted to doing a streaming service cull, only paying for one provider at a time to binge, cancel, and move onto the next. How long will providers be okay with monthly contracts that enable this behaviour? 

The streaming space has become so crowded that trying to comprehend where content might possibly live is further complicated by the multitude of providers, each housing proprietary content and having affiliations with specific movie and TV studios.  

For a list of streaming media services, see here 

To compound matters, when looking for something to watch, we are presented with an abundance of low-quality content that detracts from the good content that is available. Just because you can get the rights to a movie that went “straight to DVD” doesn’t mean you should showcase it. Perhaps a filter to remove all content with less than a 50% review on Rotten Tomatoes might be a good start. If you must index it, consider making it easier to hide.

“Just Watch” serves as a great example of a tool that allows you to select your streaming providers and the content you would like to watch, notifying you when it’s available to view, either by paying for it or when it’s free. Personally, I use it (when I remember) and find that it does a fantastic job of saving me time by eliminating the need to log in and out to find the content I want. And if used on the same device I am browsing on, it directly takes me to the show on the correct app with just one click. There are also sites like “Play Pilot” who, whilst similar to Just Watch, also use a social recommendation engine to aid with discovery. 

Hardware solutions, such as Smart TVs and plug-in dongles like Roku and Amazon Fire Stick, enable access to a variety of streaming apps on the devices they are plugged into but do not provide any real content aggregation.  

This is where the emergence of Sky Glass (and Sky Stream) looks to step into the arena of aggregating all of your streaming services in one platform supplemented by the content that Sky, as a broadcaster, provides. However, the aggregation is only really on the surface level where some of the content is syndicated together. The often buggy and not very smart experience leaves you having to navigate manually to the app and the content provider anyway. 

The fact that the aggregator has to link to the proprietary streaming app, wait for it to load and often crash to watch a programme is clunky, to say the least. When a service cannot deliver the entire eco-system, it is let down by its weakest apart, much like when you buy a product from Apple, only to receive it in a damaged box from the delivery company. 

True aggregation should reduce the effort required to find and watch the content we like, without having to navigate the barriers that are put up between providers. 

TV, satellite, and cable were the curators and aggregators of their day. Sure, we were limited by the providers scheduling and often slow access to content, but there was something lovely about the programming and being able to navigate via one platform that grouped content by categories and a list as channels. 

We didn’t have to think about who commissioned the program or which movie studio was behind it; we were able to just enjoy the content. Nowadays, we are often expected to know the studio behind the content, the streaming app that has the rights for the next six months, or where to look for the content that has now been removed. 

Now, I know the way people consume content has changed, but surely getting people to what they like and are willing to pay for should be the driving factor. 

How long will it be until providers such as YouTube, Apple, or Amazon grab hold of this opportunity and bring it all together? Is it possible to do to video what Spotify managed to achieve with music, where publishers and artists are indexed and accessible on one platform, rather than an app per music distributor? This is where we move into the era of Pay TV 3.0.

Another interesting dilemma in the video platform space is how to differentiate or not. Is the content the only way to set a service apart from the next? Or is how you find the content a way to make your experience unique, for example, or does it even matter anyway? If you have no choice but to use a specific streaming app service because that’s the only place where it lives, what incentive is there to make it better? 

Should providers look to break away from the convention of rails? Or is that the optimum way to browse a multitude of content? I feel there is still room for exploration beyond an approach that was established by shelving in a physical store. 

Supermarket grocery retailers recognised years ago that the paradigm of physical shelves to display and showcase products did not translate exactly to the digital world. The medium was different, and navigating the vast range of products demanded a fresh approach to highlighting offers and catching your eye with new items. That serendipitous moment of discovery you experience with end-of-aisle promotions, for instance, doesn’t quite translate in the digital realm. 

Bringing this back to video, is there a way to showcase content beyond the obviously endless scrolling rails of content? 

Where can we innovate to bring content to life more than the box art or a scene from the TV or Movie? 

We have reached a point where the burden of effort and overwhelming choices lie squarely on the end-user’s shoulders. They are now required to navigate through an insane number of services, each with different interfaces, categorisations, and search functions, turning the simple act of finding content into a tedious task. 

How can we add a sense of joy and serendipitous discovery when looking for entertaining content to watch?