Streaming subscriptions are the new cable, but with "much better" video-on-demand and much stronger corporate capture.
Instead of having handfuls of locally-owned television stations you could pick up by antenna or a cheap cable subscription offered by your local cable TV provider, we have apps on apps on apps all owned by Disney, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon and Comcast, with local stations being owned by huge conglomerates that are effectively franchisees.
At least it's truly a la carte, which was something cable and satellite providers could never correctly implement.
Actually, I wrote that and realized a few seconds later that that's not actually true.
If you want to watch The Office, some footbaseketball thing, Shrinking and Real Housewives of $CITY, you've got to get Peacock, Hulu, Apple TV, and the "All-Access" packages from MLB, NBA, and/or NFL, with all of them being independent monthly subscriptions ON TOP of your Internet plan that add up to being way more than your old cable or satellite subscription + premium channels. All of those apps come with tons of filler and studio titles that you probably won't watch, just like the "thousands" of channels stuffed into the cable plan you got just to get access to the big networks, sports and HBO.
This outcome was obvious the minute Netflix got out of DVDs and into streaming. And it's so much worse IMO.
It was somewhat better when the streaming studios were dumping entire seasons of content, but they've been walking that back now too.