If you have more than one person in your household it probably means that you have more than one type of preference when it comes to TV entertainment. In many cases it could be massively different. In my home for instance my wife and to a great extent I love a chunk of the programming from Discovery+. We love home renovation shows because we get ideas from them and put them into action. We love cooking and trying new things. For the most part the rest of the programming like the bitter reality shows don’t get the time of day. But we feel quite satisfied with the growing library of content that we do like. We throw in a few shows and movies from Paramount+, a little Netflix, and Peacock especially for the WWE content, (yes I know it’s not real, but neither are Batman or the lawyers in TV dramas).
My daughter on the other hand loves anime and streams Crunchyroll and lives on YouTube. After that its just phone time with friends. The reason I make this point is because every time I see an article about Netflix it says that Netflix costs 15.49. But you see, that is the cost of what the service calls Standard. Standard includes;
- Unlimited ad-free movies, TV shows, and mobile games
- Watch on 2 supported devices at a time
- Watch in Full HD
- Download on 2 supported devices at a time
What you never hear about is the Basic plan. This is what that looks like.
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- Unlimited ad-free movies, TV shows, and mobile games
- Watch on 1 supported device at a time
- Watch in HD
- Download on 1 supported device at a time
Does that really look so bad? Sure, you can only use one screen at a time instead of 2. But is that really a big deal? Do more than 2 screens really have to be engaged with Netflix at one time? Back when every family had cable and essentially nothing else for TV viewing it was really important that more than one TV could be used at a time and that people be able to watch different channels in different places. As a teenager I had a cord running from our living room to the downstairs bedroom that was set up as a game/computer room hooked to one of those super heavy 1990s CRT TV’s. Does anybody miss needing two people to move a TV? But in the streaming age content is broken up across apps. Sure there are services set up to work just like cable does. And in homes where lots of people depend on that, access to multiple screens is important.
There is a sea of streaming options and many families have more than 2. While Netflix does have a wide array of programming that appeals to pretty much anyone, so do lots of services. And since there is no such thing as appointment television anymore there is no need for 2 people to watch something different on Netflix at the same time.
If you are one of those families with multiple services seriously think about what your family watches and when, and if you are a single person what the hell are you doing paying more anyway? As people look to trim budgets it’s healthy and logical to take a closer look at where money goes. A few reductions in a few services can save over $20-$30 per month. That ads up.
