The TV industry has entered its “try everything and hope people don’t notice” phase. With CBS, FOX, HBO, Amazon, Netflix, and now AT&T all rolling out their own streaming services, we’ve essentially reinvented cable – but with more apps, more passwords, and fewer remotes that actually work. AT&T’s new DirecTV Now offering looks promising, but no DVR and no pausing live TV feels like someone released it early just to make a meeting deadline.
What’s happening isn’t surprising: every network wants to own the customer relationship. They saw Netflix eating the world and said, “Wait, we like money too.” So we got a stack of standalone services, each with one or two shows that make you question whether $10/month is a reasonable fee for watching exactly one season of something.
What’s fascinating is how the technology always races ahead of the user experience. Streaming is clearly the future – but right now it’s still the awkward middle-school version of television. Good intentions, bad execution.
Related article: TechCrunch
