What do you mean? You're saying you can find more content on services that have been around for 10, 20 30, or in HBO's case - 50 years, Disney at 87 years - over one that's been producing for 3??? Well tickle me surprised.
Buying out a library means inheriting a bunch of contracts you didn't negotiate and then having to raise prices for the cost of acquisition. Better to buy the rights and develop the project. It's not for everyone but you don't have to pay for it if you don't want to. HBO/HBO Max is great. Tons of programming - unless it's one of the ones they've recently pulled so that they can claim it on insurance as a loss and save $$ on the royalties.
I joined Disney for one year at a reduced cost (no cost) when it launched. There was almost nothing watchable for an adult. I cancelled as soon as I would have been charged. Only since then have they greatly expanded their ‘adult’ movie catalog (though some might quibble to what degree superhero/comic movies are truly ‘adult’ — I’m divided on the subject) to include many, many more new blockbuster films, and of course new series. But of all of these, I have no interest in the 10,000 (and counting) Star Wars spin-off series. Just not of interest to me. Some of the new comic book series sound interesting. But not enough for me to resubscribe.
Apple TV may have a limited catalog, though it has grown quite well over the past three years, and there are quite a few series I have really, really enjoyed!
Slow Horses is AMAZING and one of my favorite series of the past 2 years. Really well made and just excellent adaptations! And the cast, I mean Gary Oldman.
Ted Lasso is fun (though maybe cloyingly sweet after 2 seasons),
Truth Be Told was great, so were: Prehistoric Planet, Home, Mythic Quest (extremely funny and excellent cast), For All Mankind (great alternative history period piece and incredibly well done!), and Acapulco. I still haven’t watched (but want to): Bad Sisters, and Severance, and a few others.
Overall, it is one service (of the 6 to which I subscribe) that I am keeping year-round.
Hulu, Paramount, AMC+, Acorn, Britbox I’ll only subscribe to for a few months at a time. Overall just not enough quality programming to keep me invested for a full calendar year. I haven’t even watched anything on Peacock yet.
My feeling is that we’ll start seeing some more consolidation in services over the next 5 years, as these companies realize that just because Netflix can be a smash hit, doesn’t mean streaming is easy or easily profitable. Notice all of the cuts that Warner Bros/Discovery—whatever the heck they’re called now!—has just made, removing
their own series(!) from the service and renting them out to other services. We’re going to see more of that in the next few years from the old broadcast types (Paramount, Peacock, maybe even Disney) as they all need the revenue.
EDIT: And I keep Netflix year-round. There
is a lot of lower quality dreck, but still a lot of decent quality material as well. I also really, really, enjoy all of the ‘foreign’ series from Spain, France, Latin America, Germany, Norway, Italy, etc — and in their native tongues. None of the other US-based services have the kind of variety of sourced material/series which Netflix does. The hardest part of dealing with Netflix is their interface, which has gotten bogged down now that they have so much content.
But, I also think it IS important to continue to support a service which I want to continue to EXIST. Nothing would please the Disneys, Comcasts, WarnerBros-Discovery and Paramounts (or even Amazon) of the world than to see this service fail. Once that were to happen…well, fewer services will mean less competition, which is never a good thing for the consumer.
That said I liked the commercial, and while I don't think Apple TV+ stands on its own, I do enjoy a lot of the content it brings to the table.
