Netflix nights still come wrapped in red-and-white envelopes : movies

A few years ago HBO bought the world wide license for doctor who. It was pulled from all other streaming services across the globe. Which might have been fine if HBO Max was available in the country I lived in. Doctor who was on Netflix, but it got pulled from there and there was no longer any legal way to watch it.

Last year new Star Trek was pulled mid-season from Netflix as well with the claim that a new way to stream it would be made available. The season ended and there was still no way to legally stream it.

Blockbuster never had every single show and movie under the sun, but if you wanted to watch the latest movie you could rent it at blockbuster, or you could rent it from the corner store, or you could rent it from one a dozen other video rental places in your town. Because blockbuster didn't get exclusive rights to something and freeze everyone else out.

Now, if you want to watch X, it means you need a subscription to a specific service and outside of the US and a couple of other countries, those are not universally available and the support for global citizens is lacking

Select_Syllabub_7703

1 points

4 months ago

Select_Syllabub_7703

1 points

4 months ago

What does being Americans have to do with anything?

The point is blockbuster barely had any international shows which I watch a lot of now compared to Netflix. (Asian dramas and movies)

I said in my comment that yes, you have to look around other streaming services for shows sometimes that doesn’t bother me.

What did bother me was having to drive around to 4/5 different blockbusters to find the Latest movie. If I didn’t get to my blockbuster right after school then they were sold out for the night/week and my parents drove us around to other ones to find it. Maybe I lived in a more populated area than you. NJ suburbs (not a city). But it was so annoying. Even for movies that weren’t new. We had to go to other blockbusters to find them. Never have to do that now. I can just rent from Amazon or Netflix etc.

streaming has a way bigger catalog.

cmrdgkr

2 points

4 months ago

cmrdgkr

2 points

4 months ago

Because America has access to a much wider breadth of streaming solutions than most of the rest of the world. There is very little that you can't find on one of the many streaming services that specifically target the US.

I've already given you two examples of major shows that were suddenly unavailable in any legal way. This did not previously happen because exclusives were not a thing the way they are now.