This all really started with a-la carte subscriptions, which were a good thing, even if it only partially solved the problem and was implemented without much granularity by the cable providers (there used to be so many channels that most people just never cared about). Then with the internet, there started to be less need for a provider to bundle everything, so services started popping up everywhere.
Really, this is one of those areas that it would be wonderful if there was some standard by which content providers could expose their content and the metadata for it, and if you had an account with access it would be added to some aggregator for you. Sort of like what you get with Apple and Roku, with search ability through apps/channels, but in a more normalized fashion. Being able to add a discovery URL and access credentials and have a system automatically add content would be wonderful as a consumer, but the incentive just isn't there with the providers because there's always some big exclusive access deal, or a deal across multiple providers, so I'm inefficiently paying for the same movie on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. I want a world where I can add Netflix and Amazon Prime credentials to Hulu, and access all the content through Hulu, or Hulu and Amazon Prime credentials and watch everything in Netflix, or just add them all to Roku and have it add all the content to an interface there for me to use.
Amazon is actually getting closest to this in functionality, if not in spirit, by allowing you to subscribe to lots of other services through it and they show up there. Of course, you have to pay Amazon for them, and you are stuck using Amazon to view them, so it's not really equivalent at all.
Really, this is one of those areas that it would be wonderful if there was some standard by which content providers could expose their content and the metadata for it, and if you had an account with access it would be added to some aggregator for you. Sort of like what you get with Apple and Roku, with search ability through apps/channels, but in a more normalized fashion. Being able to add a discovery URL and access credentials and have a system automatically add content would be wonderful as a consumer, but the incentive just isn't there with the providers because there's always some big exclusive access deal, or a deal across multiple providers, so I'm inefficiently paying for the same movie on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. I want a world where I can add Netflix and Amazon Prime credentials to Hulu, and access all the content through Hulu, or Hulu and Amazon Prime credentials and watch everything in Netflix, or just add them all to Roku and have it add all the content to an interface there for me to use.
Amazon is actually getting closest to this in functionality, if not in spirit, by allowing you to subscribe to lots of other services through it and they show up there. Of course, you have to pay Amazon for them, and you are stuck using Amazon to view them, so it's not really equivalent at all.