We were promised a utopia. The dawn of streaming was heralded as the end of scarcity, a digital paradise where every film and TV show ever made would be available at our fingertips, for a low monthly fee, without ads. We cheered as the monolithic video rental stores crumbled, believing we were marching toward a future of infinite choice.

Instead, we inherited a fragmented, expensive, and dysfunctional dystopia. The streaming revolution has failed. The promise has been broken, and the evidence is everywhere—in the frustrating gaps in our digital libraries, the countless “Save for Later” lists that never get filled, and the beloved classics that have simply vanished into the digital ether.

This is the story of how we got here, driven by corporate greed, strategic blunders, and a fundamental betrayal of the audience.

Part 1: The Illusion of Choice – A Library of Missing Titles

The most immediate and personal failure of streaming is the simple fact that you cannot watch what you want to watch. The vast digital Blockbuster we were sold is a mirage.

• The Disney+ Paradox: Disney spent $71.3 billion to acquire 20th Century Fox, a purchase that included a century of iconic cinema. The logical assumption was that Disney+ would become the home for this vast library. Yet, years later, hundreds of key titles remain absent. Where are Broadcast News, Grand Canyon, That Thing You Do, Say Anything and many others?
• Others not on Disney+ include Dick Tracy, Grosse Pointe Blank, Stakeout, Ruthless People, Ransom, Arachnophobia, Phenomenon, Bicentennial Man, The Color of Money, Tough Guys, Outrageous Fortune,, The Good Son, For The Boys, Brokedown Palace, Shining Through, Ravenous, Pacific Heights, The War of the Roses, Porky’s, Rising Sun, Bachelor Party and many more.
• The Purge for Profit: In a move that exposed the brutal economics of streaming, Disney itself began removing its own original content from Disney+ and Hulu. In 2023, it deleted over 70 titles, including the Willow series and The World According to Jeff Goldblum. Why? To take a write-down and use it as a tax break, saving the company money while erasing the work of countless creators from the platform it was made for. This act of corporate censorship proves that even content you think is permanently hosted on a service can disappear overnight.
• The Licensing Labyrinth: The issue extends far beyond Disney. Countless classics are unavailable anywhere due to rights issues stuck in a byzantine maze of corporate ownership. Kevin Smith’s Dogma is held hostage by the disgraced Harvey Weinstein. The beloved animated film The Brave Little Toaster is stuck in rights hell, while its inferior sequels are on Disney+ 

It would be interesting to see the percentage of films and TV shows released by studios over the last 40 years that are available on streaming services. Compared to those that were previously available on DVD/Blu-ray. Surely Sky Cinema should show more films released in the 80s and 90s, as it showed the 1986’s About Last Night, a film I’ve probably not seen in 20 years.

Part 2: The Root of the Failure – A War of Corporate Ego

How did we get to a point where the content owner’s own platform isn’t the best place to watch their content? The answer lies in the catastrophic miscalculation of the Streaming Wars.

• The Fatal Attraction to Netflix’s Throne: Bob Iger and other legacy studio CEOs saw Netflix’s market cap and subscriber count and reacted out of fear and greed. They became obsessed with building their own walled gardens to capture subscription revenue directly. In doing so, they abandoned a highly profitable and risk-free business: licensing their content to Netflix. They walked away from billions in guaranteed revenue to chase the elusive dream of becoming the next Netflix.
• Sony: The Wise “Arms Dealer”: In this desperate land grab, one major studio stood apart: Sony. Having learned from its failed Crackle experiment, Sony wisely refused to play the game. Instead of burning billions on a doomed streaming service, it became an “arms dealer,” licensing its valuable content (like Spider-Man and Jumanji) to the highest bidder, including Netflix and Disney+. This strategy has proven to be far more profitable and sustainable than that of its rivals, who are now drowning in debt.
• The Human and Consumer Cost: The financial toll has been staggering. Disney’s streaming operations lost $4 billion in a single year. The industry saw tens of thousands of jobs lost in the subsequent consolidation. For consumers, the cost of accessing a fraction of the content once available on a single Netflix subscription or at a Blockbuster has quadrupled. We now pay more for less choice, less permanence, and a worse experience.

Part 3: The New (Old) Exploitative Models

As the subscriber growth bubble burst, streamers pivoted to old cable-era tactics to squeeze revenue from a disillusioned audience.

• The Rise of the Ad-Tier Trap: In a cruel irony, the ad-free future we were sold has been replaced by a push for ad-supported tiers. But even this is a broken promise. Netflix’s ad-supported plan is missing 5% of its total library, including major Originals like House of Cards and Arrested Development. This creates a second-class experience for price-conscious users, segmenting the library and further diminishing value.
• Content Windowing is Back: Studios are now relearning the old cable practice of “windowing”—licensing content to other platforms for a period before it cycles back to their own service. This is why Disney licenses hits like The Bear to Channel 4 in the UK. It generates short-term cash but utterly undermines the value proposition of their own service. Why subscribe to Disney+ if its best shows are available elsewhere?

Part 4: The Path Forward? A Return to Sanity

The industry is finally realising its model is broken. The failed strategy of walling off all content is being abandoned in favour of a saner, hybrid approach.

• The Re-Emergence of Licensing: In a stunning reversal, studios are now licensing their content to Netflix again. HBO shows like Westworld are now streaming on Tubi. This is an admission that the initial strategy was a catastrophic failure. Easy licensing revenue is now needed to offset massive streaming losses.
• The Paramount Skydance Hope: The recent merger between Paramount and Skydance offers a glimmer of hope. The new entity is focusing on a tech-driven strategy that emphasises AI and operational efficiency. The logical next step, as you suggested, would be to abandon the money-losing Paramount+ and expand its existing output deal with Apple TV+. This would follow the Sony model: focus on making great content and let a tech giant with a superior platform handle the distribution.
• The Only Winning Move: The lesson is becoming clear. As in the film Wargames, “the only winning move is not to play.” The winner of the Streaming Wars wasn’t Disney or Paramount; it was Netflix, which saw its model validated and its competition bleed itself dry. And the most profitable player was Sony, which sat on the sidelines and sold arms to all sides.

The Shifting Strategies of Major Studios

Studio	Initial Strategy	Outcome	New Direction
Disney	Wall off all content on D+	$4B+ in annual losses 12; Missing libraries	Relicensing content to rivals
Paramount	Build Paramount+	Massive debt; Sold to Skydance	Potential shift to licensing (Apple deal)
Warner Bros.	Build Max (HBO Max)	Major content purges; Licensing to Netflix	Hybrid approach
Sony	License to all (No major streamer)	Highly profitable; Low risk	Doubling down on the “arms dealer” model

Conclusion: The Victory of Physical Media and Patient Capital

The great streaming experiment has culminated in a profound failure for everyone except Netflix. Studios lost billions. Workers lost their jobs. Creators saw their art erased for a tax break. And customers were left with a fractured, expensive, and unreliable system that is objectively worse than the physical rental model it replaced.

The streaming era has proven that corporate greed will always prioritise quarterly earnings over cultural preservation and customer satisfaction. The promise of a comprehensive, permanent digital library was a lie.

The true lesson is this: If you love a film, own it physically. A DVD or Blu-ray on your shelf cannot be edited, censored, disappear for a tax break, or rotated out of your collection due to a licensing dispute. In the end, the only streaming strategy that truly respects the art and the audience is the one that never started fighting in the first place.

The revolution was televised. And then it was cancelled.

---