~Television businesses use fee-based services to gain revenue (Snider, 2002).

~Free TV uses government subsidies, ad revenue, and a move to fee-based services to gain profit; worth at least 100 billion (Snider, 2002).

~Source also discusses the Cable Act of 1992 and the Telecom Act, which helped in preserving Free TV.

Snider, J. H. (2002). Why There’s No Such Thing As Free TV. Consumers’ Research Magazine, 85(11), 19.

~Analyzes users of Netflix and Spotify in Europe

~Services can customize media consumption and tell what their preferences are, but they can also be restrictive by locking content, forcing the users to fork over more cash, and also by locking some access in certain situations. (Echauri, 2023).

~Shows the advancement of subscription-services, how they've gotten smarter over the years, hitting what seems to be a peak in this decade.

Echauri, G. (2023). Digital subscribers: Between freedom and constraint. Media, Culture & Society, 45(6), 1175-1191. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437231159554

~Rise of video game culture & DLC

~Games-as-a-service can generate more stable revenue that is also recurring for the video game industry.

~Game developers of those services to have a divergence in their identity, analyzing their differences in relationships, performance criteria, and traits (Dubois & Weststar, 2022).

Dubois, L.-E., & Weststar, J. (2022). Games-as-a-service: Conflicted identities on the new front-line of video game development. New Media & Society, 24(10), 2332-2353. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444821995815

~Netflix built their business throughout the 2010's by the media industry giving them all sorts of content (Nathanson, 2022).

Nathanson, M. (2022, September 14). How the Streaming Wars Will Alter the Media Landscape. Yale Insights. https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/how-the-streaming-wars-will-alter-the-media-landscape

~"Overall consumer spending on entertainment is now going to grow more slowly, but there’ll be share shifts within that allocation of spend" (Nathanson, 2022, para 28.).

~Less and less people will pay for cable TV and move more towards streaming services.

~Other types of entertainment services will get hurt, (especially physical media) such as physical video games, DVDs, and less theater-watching- kind of like how CDs died. (Nathanson, 2022).

~Discuss the rising competition that Cable TV faces from online streaming services.

~"Cable companies that wish to compete with online

streaming services must keep prices competitive" (Lee et al., 2018, p. 21).

~"Ease of use, additional purchases, media options and social trends have an impact on the decision to adopt cable TV providers and online streaming" (Lee et al., 2018, p. 21).

Lee, C. C., Nagpal, P., Ruane, S. G., & Lim, H. S. (2018). Factors affecting online streaming subscriptions. Communications of the IIMA, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.58729/1941-6687.1394

~Shows how there is increased competition on popular streaming services (subscription-video-on-demand-services, or SVODs), (including HBO and Showtime).

Wayne, M. L. (2022). Netflix audience data, streaming industry discourse, and the emerging realities of ‘popular’ television. Media, Culture & Society, 44(2), 193-209. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437211022723

(source shown later)

~Netflix CEO Peter Hastings calls Fortnite Netflix's "strongest competitor" than any other streaming service, with Fortnite being "top free-to-play game" in the West (Jungherr & Schlarb, 2022, p. 6).

~Allows users to "engage with multiple media experiences more broadly" (Jungherr & Schlarb, 2022, p. 6).

~Attracts players firsthand by being free-to-play, then introducing content to be unlocked by transactions.

~Shows how subscription and pay services are evolving in the entertainment landscape.

Jungherr, A., & Schlarb, D. B. (2022). The Extended Reach of Game Engine Companies: How Companies Like Epic Games and Unity Technologies Provide Platforms for Extended Reality Applications and the Metaverse. Social Media + Society, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221107641

~Over the years, the way Western society has consumed entertainment has evolved drastically.

~From tabletop games to live sports matches to movie theaters to video games, humanity's longing for escapism has never died down.

~One popular form of entertainment that seems to be dominating across the globe, and in Western societies especially, is that of subscription services.

~These services have risen dramatically in popularity, and for better or worse, seem to be taking over the entertainment industry.

~It's important to see the trends of how they've gotten to such a tremendous status, and what their rise might have in store in the future of the Western entertainment industry.

~Physical music began to suffer after the rise of new technology in the digital age "from 2001 onwards" (Barata & Coelho, 2021, p. 1).

~Streaming is considered to be the more preferred way of music listening due to the "mass use of smartphones" (Barata & Coelho, 2021, p. 2).

Barata, M. L., & Coelho, P. S. (2021). Music streaming services: understanding the drivers of customer purchase and intention to recommend. Heliyon, 7(8), e07783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07783

~Spotify, the most popular streaming service across the globe, using "ad-supported services" (Barata & Coelho, 2021, p. 2).

~Shows how profits are made with the subscription service model, through advertisements, and "the premium model" (Barata & Coelho, 2021, p. 2), a model that has more features for a higher price.

~Growth of users of the premium model resulted in a growth of profits for Spotify (percentages on the source itself).

~Shows how profits are the dominating cause for the rise of subscription-based services.

Lopez, U. (2022, June 29). DFC Intelligence Believes Gaming Subscription Services will Push PC/Console Gaming to Record Year. Wccftech. https://wccftech.com/dfc-intelligence-believes-gaming-subscription-services-will-push-pc-console-gaming-to-record-year/

~Discusses the Sherman Act of 1890 as well, which banned monopolies.

~"Locally-licensed cable television providers controlled 95% of the pay television market" (Grimes, 2013, p. 4).

~Cable television market begins to become more diverse by the late 1990's to the early 2000s, henceforth meaning that the early cable television monopolies are no longer, and competition is increasing.

~Competition from NBC Universal (Comcast), Viacom Inc., Walt Disney Company, Fox Entertainment Group (pre-Disney acquisition), and Time Warner Inc (pay television distributers).

Grimes, W. S. (2013). The Distribution of Pay Television in the United States: Let an Unshackled Marketplace Decide. Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law, 5(1), 1–47.

~Explains customization and "freedom" associated with the modern subscription services.

~Works as a supplement to the "Digital subscribers: Between freedom and constraint" source

Colbjørnsen, T. (2021). The streaming network: Conceptualizing distribution economy, technology, and power in streaming media services. Convergence, 27(5), 1264-1287. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856520966911