Streaming services are a waste of time and money

The only things on there are the things that nobody actually wants to watch.

I saw a meme recently that posed the question, "How to tell if I want to watch a movie?" the answer given was if the movie was on Netflix then the person didn't want to watch it. This statement holds true for all streaming services. Sure there are some that have movies that most people seem to agree are good but you've probably already watched Iron Man twelve times do you really need to see it again?

I'm old enough to remember when Netflix actually had a good amount of good stuff on it, heck, I'm even old enough to remember when Netflix wasn't even a streaming service. Back then you'd pay like ten bucks a month and you could request any movie from them and they'd mail you a DVD copy of it and you'd watch it then simply mail it back. The best thing about this was that back then Netflix had almost every movie so if there was a movie you wanted to watch you'd almost always be able to get it, sure it would take a few days to get to you but having that wait gives you more satisfaction when you finally did get to watch the LEGO Movie.

I guess that was another great thing about the time before streaming services, watching a movie used to be an event. Think of a movie theater, whenever you go to a movie theater you spend time driving there having already decided that there is a movie there that you actually want to watch, you then tell the ticket office that you want to buy a ticket to that movie, you then go to the room dedicated to that movie then you watch that movie with no distractions, this is the best way to watch a movie.

Renting a physical copy of a movie (whether if it be through the mail or by going to an actual store) to watch at home followed a similar pattern in which you would have to jump through a bunch of hoops to watch a specific movie then because of the amount of time and effort it took for you to actually get the movie you'd do a much better job of actually watching it, you'd plan to do it and if you had friends over they would also actually watch it since that is the reason you invited them over. Streaming services have killed this practice.

Here is a scenario that is way too common among young adults these days:

Group of friends get together to hang out at someone's place.
Group of friends remember that their social media addiction has made them forget how to actually socialize.
Group of friends decide that they should turn on a movie so that they don't feel as awkward looking at their phones instead of talking to each other.
Somebody in the group logs into a streaming service then a discussion is started on what movie they should "watch" but since this was not at all planned this does not go well and the person with the remote ends up turning on something that almost everyone has already seen and nobody actually wants to watch.
Because nobody actually wanted to watch that movie (or really any movie in that case) everyone pulls out their phone and ignores everything going on around them.
In some cases after an hour or so someone will point out the fact that nobody is actually watching the movie but whenever this happens everyone else will lie and say that they were, this shuts down that person's attempt to actually socialize as everyone goes back to their phone.
Once the movie ends everyone will then decide that they can actually talk to each other because they are tired of their phones, but the conversation can never last very long because the time that they had allotted themselves to hang out had been eaten up by everyone waiting for a movie that nobody wanted to watch in the first place to end.

Now anyone with more than two brain cells should be able to recognize how annoying this sort of thing gets. The thing about this that baffles me is that there are people who will do this exact same things when they are by themselves. Why would anyone turn on a movie if they aren't actually going to watch it? That's what the news is for. Please, for the sake of your own sanity don't do this to yourself or your friends, learn to be social again and don't be a sheep.

Of course there is nothing wrong with watching a movie if it is one that you actually want to watch, if there is one you want to watch then make an event out of it, set aside time, and give yourself the opportunity to look forward to watching it. Although the unfortunate thing about finding movies you actually want to watch is that they seem to never be on streaming services. I don't remember the last time that I or a friend thought of a movie we actually wanted to watch (that we didn't already know was on a streaming service) that ended up being on a streaming service when we checked for it. I have come to the conclusion that it is cheaper for you to rent the movies that you actually want to watch for a buck or two a night than it is for you to spend $50 a month paying for three separate streaming services which collectively probably only have five things worth watching. Liberate yourself from these platforms and spend your time and money doing things you actually want to do.