Yeah it’s come full circle.

Cable exists. You pay for content but still get ads because greed.

Piracy gains traction. Technically illegal but usually unenforced. All content, no ads, kinda a pain, but clearly worth it to many.

Streaming gains traction. Cheaper alternative to cable. On demand. No ads. Many pirates diminish or quit pirating content. Clearly most people are willing to pay a reasonable amount for quality on demand content and no ads.

Streaming really picks up steam as the mainstream starts cutting cable for ad free on demand content for less. Again, people are happy paying for what they see as good value.

Greed creeps back in, content is fractured among many streaming services, making the cost basically a wash vs cable but still has advantages of on demand and no ads and the ability to share and juggle subscriptions.

Greed continues, ads creep back in, “premium” streaming offered for higher fees to eliminate introduced ads. Content continues to diminish. People start turning back to piracy for the same reasons as they did 15-20 years ago. Services also start cracking down on sub sharing.

Assuming greed continues, I predict we’ll see these services attempt to squeeze even more money from the loyal subscribers they have left as they restructure their subscription models to contracts. No longer will there be any paying month to month. But rather you’ll have to enter onto a 1 or 2 year contract to stream. I also predict that they’ll very carefully curate their selections so that new seasons are available to current subscribers, then once the season is complete, they go away for a year before coming back, just to get people to maintain subscriptions instead of juggling contracts by year.