And crucially, we are no longer loyal. In the 90s, NBC could rely on a Friends audience. Today, your favorite show is cancelled before you finish the season premiere.
The result is consumer whiplash. We are no longer "binge-watching." We are churning . We subscribe for Succession , cancel, resubscribe for The Last of Us , cancel, and pirate Bluey for the kids out of sheer subscription fatigue. The average household now spends over $100 a month on streaming—more than the average cable bill of 2015. a27hopsonxxx
We have entered a strange new phase of popular media. Industry insiders are calling it "The Great Unwind." It is a period of contraction, confusion, and, paradoxically, incredible creativity. After years of bloat, the entertainment landscape is not just changing channels—it is changing the very nature of what a "channel" is. For a moment, let us mourn the streaming bundle. What began as a utopian promise—every movie, every show, every song, for the price of a latte—has collapsed under its own weight. Netflix, Max, Disney+, Peacock, Apple TV+, Paramount+, Prime Video, and a dozen niche players have recreated the exact problem they were built to solve: the cable bundle, just with better algorithms and worse buffering. And crucially, we are no longer loyal
On the other hand, you had The Marvels and The Flash —expensive, sequel-laden, universe-building films that crashed and burned. The audience has developed a sophisticated immune system to mediocre franchise fare. We will show up for a great Spider-Verse movie. We will not show up for the fourth Ant-Man . The result is consumer whiplash
Prediction three: The next phase of streaming isn't ad-free or ad-supported. It is you -supported. Spotify’s AI DJ is the prototype. Your Netflix feed will soon be unique to you, assembled by an AI that knows your mood better than your spouse. It will generate a playlist of clips from The Office , a scene from an obscure K-drama, and a recap of the baseball game, all in a seamless scroll. It won't be television. It will be a mirror. The Takeaway We are tired. We are overwhelmed. We have 40,000 hours of new "content" produced every single day, and we are using that bounty to rewatch The Office for the fifth time.
For decades, the gatekeepers were in Los Angeles and New York. They had offices, development deals, and power lunches. Today, the most influential creator in the world might be a 22-year-old with a ring light in Omaha.
Right now, the system is unwinding. The contracts are broken. The old kings—Netflix, Disney, the studio system—are bleeding. And in the chaos, the weird stuff is getting through. A documentary about a paedophile janitor ( The Curious Case of... ) becomes the most watched thing on the planet. A two-hour black-and-white courtroom drama ( Anatomy of a Fall ) wins an Oscar.