I don’t even know why you’d consider any TV content when there’s plenty of free entertainment on Youtube. Ditch live TV and you can save on the TV license as well.
Also you can actually share the Netflix subscription cost! Unlike me… who pays it in full and gives free access to parents, sister, girlfriend, girlfriend’s parents, girlfriend’s sister…
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Is this a function offered by Netflix? I’ve never heard of this before!
Absolutely not, that’s why I’ve been paying it all for all these years 
That’s a pretty outlandish statement 
Sure, if you are struggling (or just want to cut back), you can absolutely get by without a TV subscription.
But… Sports… Movies (decent Movies), TV Series (new ones/decent ones) - You can’t get that from YouTube, or other free, legitimate sources.
YouTube and other free media sources tend to be more “time killers” - Yeah, I could watch the top 20 greatest “xyz” or whatever - But it’s no substitute IMO.
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Definitely, subscribe to the channels that you find interesting and you’ll have a solid mix of free additional videos to watch in no time.
This is why eventually they need to amalgamate these services into one. I don’t really want to pay for Sky Sports, Netflix, Sky TV (virgin tv or whatever) separately and this is one of the reasons people turn to free live streams. Sport is the big one, it shouldn’t be split between 3/4 different providers, it should just be one subscription service to view all televised sport for £15pm or whatever
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Are you talking about the illegal free live streams? (although, I’m not sure if watching them is illegal, or streaming them is illegal)?
The problem you have here, is if 1 player came along and dominated the market, they could just set the price to whatever they wanted!
I agree, the price of this stuff is obscene, but I don’t think it should be amalgamate into one “jack of all trades” service.
I just think the services they offer should be more affordable.
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Yeap, seen plenty of people use them for sport, live tv and films etc. I don’t blame them in a way when they would have to pay so many different providers subscriptions to watch them all
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I struggle with this - Because you are effectively saying you have no problem with stealing, whilst others pay the bill.
Don’t get me wrong, the cost of the film/sports match is wrong - 100% agree it’s too expensive.
But I would never let me kids stream stuff that “should” be paid for.
In the same way that if I had kids around the “lime wire/napster” era, I wouldn’t let them download whatever they wanted.
We have a family Apple Music subscription which helps that now (appreciate there was nothing back then).
Edit - Bear in mind this is a luxury, not a necessity.
I kinda think that one provider would be dangerous (assuming that we’re talking about the contemporary capitalist / competition-based financial system). But there might be something to say about taking the Monzo / platform model and extending it to TV.
What does that look like? Well you have what appears to be one service (let’s call it Streamzo) that actually aggregates content from different specialist providers, but owns the relationship with the customer. The analogy here is Monzo isn’t (I think) about the current account, but as providing a central way for people to manage their money better. This might mean that they even stop being the “bank” as these things become more commoditised.
Back to TV - imagine that Streamzo provides an ace user experience, all in one place, but with content from BBC Studios, ITV Studios, the Olympics, Netflix… That’d do what you’re asking but without it all being owned by one company. You’d probably also have competition from others, so Streamling but be a thing, too…
The difficulty with all of this is moving from a model of owner/broadcaster (or banks that do All the Things) to a commoditised, platform model.
(Also, would this be desirable in video? I think it is in banking, but in streaming I’m not sure - although I’m open to convincing either way…)
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I’m not sure that @ChrisBeldam is saying that he has no problem with stealing - just that he thinks that the current set up makes it more likely that people will illegally stream (although I’m sure he can speak for himself!)
I certainly used to have friends that would illegally download MP3s - not because it was free, but because it was the only way they could get them. That doesn’t excuse it, of course, but the activity did stop when things like Spotify came along.
(Actually, my post above makes more sense when you think about a Spotify or Apple Music for video, rather than Streamzo! 
)
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Because you are effectively saying you have no problem with stealing, whilst others pay the bill.
I don’t see it as stealing.
I have a problem with actual stealing where the legitimate owner of the goods being stolen would end up worse off by no longer having those goods.
Consuming digital content that you weren’t going to pay for anyway doesn’t affect the legitimate owner at all - if anything it still helps them out because while they don’t get money from the sale, they still get the awareness around their product/service (you talk to your friends about the game you’re watching, etc) they wouldn’t normally get from someone not watching the content at all.
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No offence, but that is ridiculous
So if you weren’t going to watch the latest blockbuster release at the cinema, you can justify to yourself that streaming it illegally is fine?
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Absolutely. They wouldn’t have gotten the money anyways, and I’d still be talking about how good the movie was with my friends, essentially giving them free advertising.
Now I know the issue is that by making illegal streaming legal there would be no more incentive to pay for stuff, so I wouldn’t approve of illegally obtaining stuff that could be purchased, so like I wouldn’t approve of streaming a movie if it was available on Netflix or iTunes (but still, I wouldn’t see it as bad as real stealing).
But in this case where the movie is only available in theatres and I do not want/can’t go to the theatre for X reason, then I don’t see the issue as again they wouldn’t have gotten the money anyway.
Oooooook…
Just think if everyone did that, then the film companies wouldn’t make any money from ticket sales, or the sports companies wouldn’t make any money from their PPV events and most of the entertainment industry wouldn’t be able to produce the entertainment people want.
I’ve said all along that I think the cost should be lower (Boxing PPV is a joke) - But I completely disagree with how you look at it lol.
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It was, of course, for football. Sky had all the available Premier League matches. In order to provide competition, the PL were forced to split the matches between more than one company. So viewers who wanted all the matches had to pay Sky and BT. This season, they’ll have to pay Sky, BT, and Amazon.
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then the film companies wouldn’t make any money from ticket sales
Make stuff available online from day 1? A lot of piracy is due to convenience instead of not wanting to pay for stuff. In the scenario of not wanting to go to the movie theatre, people could instead buy it online instead of illegally downloading it.
the sports companies wouldn’t make any money from their PPV events
Why? If the content is easily available for purchase without bullshit like region locking, etc, there would be more than enough people purchasing it legally to make the industry sustainable.
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I reckon you’d absolutely kill the cinema industry if that happened (in the same way people are drinking at home rather than going to the pub).
But, yeah, as a consumer, I wouldn’t have a problem with that (as it would be easier for me).
Most of the content is easily available - It’s just expensive, and when people have paid upwards of £60 per month for their Sky Subscription, they don’t want to fork out more money for the one off matches.
But I really struggle to be convinced by your logic.
There really is little difference between illegally downloading something, and taking something out of a shop - The excuse of “I don’t want it anyway” is irrelevant.