I like JustWatch. Search for a show, it will show you where it's available for free, where it's available with subscription, and where you can buy it... and not just the major services, but TV channel sites, too. (Note, I'm Canadian, and it's showing Canadian TV, like CTV. No idea if they just happen to be Canadian, or they show what's available elsewhere.)

Shows what's trending across services.

Also has a "new" tab. Select which services you subscribe to, and it will show what's added to each service. It seems to remember my service selections via a cookie, so I don't even have to bother making an account.

A google search of a show or movie often provides some results about where you can watch content, although I’m sure it is not as comprehensive.

I think the root of the problem still exists though, that everything is so incredibly fragmented that you’re nickel and dimed to death.

I think Canadians use JustWatch way more than Americans simply because the English Internet only talks about availability of shows in the US.

It is very easy to be a monopoly, especially one that was first in a certain market, or which can use various tactics to make you use their service. You dont remember how Apple would upload some album into your device without your consent?

I find it fascinating how many people allow monopolies for just laziness: "Steam is so great because I have all games in one place - I dont need 20 shortcuts on my desktop". Then Steam (for years - I think they fixed it now and it opens in few seconds, without asking you to login every day), takes 2 minutes to start because it was written by cheapest bidder + it can close your account so you lose all your games.

Multiple services are a way for actual market competition. Otherwise everything becomes Disney, who churns multiple crappy Marvel movies every year (current blockbuster cinema is mostly rubbish), or everything becomes Neflix where quality is trash, but hey actors were chosen by an algorithm (Ozark - or what was the show name, basically took popular actors and a popular theme and made a show with no interesting plot, no interesting dialogue).

So scary to see that people agree with that, because they are lazy. This is some Idiocracy level.

By the way, since we are on hacker news: nearly all, if not all shows are on the pirate websites.

> everything becomes Neflix where quality is trash, but hey actors were chosen by an algorithm

I always thought that the algorithm had some successes (at least "back in the day")

e.g. The myth is that House of Cards came out of Netflix realizing that there were a lot of fans of Kevin Spacey, people wanted a complex story line etc. [0]

More recently, I kind of agree that the "enshittification" is starting to kick in but not sure how much of that is monopoly vs oligopoly. Which is sad b/c the big data, when used correctly, DOES lead to "sleeper" hits with different story lines/plots, old actors in new roles etc. This in turn makes me wonder if things were better under the old advertising/commercial supported model where ratings led to more ads which led to better writing etc. In other words, the networks knew exactly what was bringing in the revenue so they sent dollars to those shows. With Netflix, you know what people are watching but not necessarily what brought them to Netflix in the first place.

0 - Good explanation of this here: https://filmmakermagazine.com/64544-house-of-cards-the-netfl...

I always assumed that enshittification was a consequence that {more volume} + {lower costs} was more profitable than {less volume} + {higher costs}.

Which is why you don't see it in growth companies (they have organic growth as they acquire customers), but you do see it once growth plateaus (financial optimization very quickly leads to "minimally-acceptable content for most-users").

The point is that 20 streaming services with all the shows would be _fine_. They could compete on UI, delivery and price, not on exclusive content.

Steam having every game is great for me. I am happy for loads of other game stores to exist and sell me stuff and store my saves and let me download infinitely etc.

I don't want no competition, I want no exclusive games and high fragmentation

The point is there isn't actually competition on the streaming services: there's competition between the media companies on the production of content, who then restrict the availability of said content to a subset of services. Instead of the situation with music where it's normal that an album is at the very least available on the big 3, if not many others. And there's generally not a shell game where things start and stop being available as well. An actually competitive market would separate the streaming services from the content production and the incentive would be for the content to be available on as many platforms as possible and the platforms would compete on quality and features instead of how much of a catalog they can license this month.

(similarly with steam: the blowback on epic was due to exclusive games, not the mere existence of it. Steam-exclusive games are also a problem, but generally one which comes naturally from its market position and not artificially through contracts)

Funny because I'm using Spotify paid and I'm getting closer and closer to cancelling that with all the bugs and advertising. Using a web player the music just mites itself for 10 seconds at a time, skips tracks on its own. Pauses. The mobile app hits you with full screen ads and big banner ads at the top that you can't disable. It's the most annoying service I use for streaming.

what ads are you getting on spotify mobile? occasionally i’ll get a full page banner for a new track or feature but that’s about it

I've stopped listening to specific podcasts that, even with premium, play ads [1]. I knew instantly that those were not inserted by the podcasters themselves because, as always, the ads played in my local language instead of the language of the show.

[1] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Subscriptions/Premium-accou...