Our mission at SAW is to foster conversations about this thing we all love (or love to hate): film/TV. Many of our features are designed with you in mind. Your opinions, to be more to the point. You have ’em. We want to hear ’em.
Question of the Day (QOTD) is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a film/TV-related question that we put to you, the reader. The comments section below is like the feedback box at work; except, in this example, we actually read what you write and care about what you have to say.
They say content is king. If that’s true, the king is alive and well in 2019. Fifteen years ago, you had 300+ channels and absolutely nothing at all on worth watching. Now, anyone with the latest smart phone is creating content and vying for your attention, and we’re not talking shit content. YouTube just made the first season of its hit web series Cobra Kai avaible free to non-subscribers, and believe me, that show is worth a subscription. Disney+ launches this fall, Amazon is working on its mysterious new Lord of the Rings-based web TV show, more and more new movies are getting releases on platforms like Netflix, and if the field wasn’t crowded enough already, there are hundreds of independent YouTubers cranking out great content on a daily and weekly basis.
There’s never been a better time to be a genre fan, if you can navigate the thousands of choices and pick what you want. So, the question of the day is: How much is too much content? Are you a less is more or a more is more kind of person?
Personally, I’ve never been great with too many choices, and there’s data that suggests people are actually happier with fewer choices. I don’t know how many times I have scrolled through options across multiple platforms for a half hour or more only to give up in disgust and read a book instead. Or how many times I’ve chosen something only to wonder, fifteen minutes in, if I’ve made the wrong decision. I actually gave up streaming in January mostly for this reason, but now that I’ve moved and no longer live 4 miles from a video store, I’m once again facing the gauntlet of streaming choices. At the end of the day, though, I don’t think I would choose less content, but I would love to have a better way of navigating, searching, and filtering the choices across multiple platforms. A modern day TV Guide, if you will. I’ve used JustWatch, but I have not found it particularly helpful. Even better filtering options within the individual apps themselves would be a big improvement over what we have now. (And while we’re on the subject of apps, I’d like to take this opportunity to give Netflix a big middle finger for not making their annoying fucking auto play feature something that can be toggled on and off.)
But what about you guys and gals? Have we reached critical mass with content and content providers or do you revel int he endless options?
Let us know in the comments below, and I’ll see you in the trenches.
