Netflix and Chill…or Time to Kill Netflix?

One of my closest friends has played roller derby for the Putas del Fuego in Austin, Texas since 2015. Going by the moniker “Netflix and Kill,” her jersey number is $7.99, the original price of a basic Netflix subscription with no ads and multiple users. I’ve got to hand it to her, she’s got style…but her jersey is outdated.

Ten years since she began rolling for the Putas, the price for the same subscription is now $17.99. The company has also cracked down heavily on password sharing and charges an additional $7.99/mo fee per additional user. In 2015, the standard Netflix subscription for a family of four cost $95.88/year. In 2025 the same family will pay $407.64/year. Yikes. Accounting for inflation, a Netflix account of equal value should be $140.30/year. Netflix has raised their price nearly 300% for the same product.

But is it really the same product? Netflix used to be considered indispensable, with 90% of customers expressing satisfaction with the service in 2021. However, those numbers have been on a downward spiral since then, dropping to 75% in 2024. Customers express frustration with frequent cancellations of popular shows and an overall decline in the quality of those productions. Acclaimed Netflix originals GLOW, Santa Clarita Diet, Mindhunter, and Sense8, have all been canceled prematurely following 1-3 successful seasons.

Of course, Netflix isn’t alone. Many of the legacy shows that originally drew users to the platform such as The Office, Friends, Parks and Recreation, and all things Marvel universe, have been traded to competing platforms. Classic shows with large fan bases are now fought over in what’s been dubbed “the streaming wars.” The shows you love are now treated like the child in an acrimonious divorce, being yanked left and right as the unwilling subject of copyright and corporate politics. This is because these OTT (over-the-top) streaming companies don’t need to keep you watching. They only need to keep you subscribed. One show that you love is enough. More than that, to them what difference does it make?

But what is the difference to you? 

The streaming revolution promised you on demand access to the world of movies and television for just a low monthly fee. This was revolutionary. Perhaps you felt that we had entered a new era, the “golden age of television,” and an opportunity to advance beyond the dreaded cable company. The average cable TV-only plan costs $83 per month, which is substantially higher than, for example, Hulu+LiveTV which only costs $81.99 per month. Don’t spend that dollar all in one place. 

Of course, if you have kids, then you must also subscribe to Disney+; if you want White Lotus, then you’ve got to be subscribed to Max; if you want access to The Office, you’re going to need Peacock; and if there’s a specific movie you want to see tonight that isn’t on any of those platforms, well, then you’re just going to end up renting it for $3.99 on Amazon anyway. 

So you were promised on demand access to anything you wanted to watch for a lower cost than cable…do you feel like that’s what you got?

Or do you feel a bit like one of those cows hooked up to machines endlessly siphoning away your value to the farmer, draining you dry? There’s a reason you feel that way. It’s called digital feudalism. 

Digital Feudalism: Welcome to the New Castle System

In the Middle Ages, peasants didn’t own land—they worked it for their lord. They paid taxes, provided labor, and in return, they got to live on the land they toiled. They didn’t own the wheat, but they could eat. They didn’t own the house, but they could sleep. The trade-off was simple: You exist by permission. You labor by lease.

Sound familiar?

In today’s digital landscape, we don’t own the content we consume. We rent access to it. And just like those medieval peasants, we’re entirely at the mercy of the lords—only now they wear hoodies and run earnings calls instead of swinging swords. Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Max—each one controls its own walled garden of IP. And if you want to enter, you pay the toll. Not once. Every month. Forever.

You don’t own the show you love. You don’t own the movie you watched four times last year. You don’t even own the recommendation algorithm that knows your taste better than your partner. You’re just leasing your spot on the land, and if you miss a payment, the drawbridge closes.

In this model, your cultural memory, your nostalgia, your digital preferences—all of it—is stored on someone else’s server. And at any moment, it can disappear. A licensing deal expires. A show is pulled “for tax reasons.” A price is raised without warning. You live under the constant threat of content eviction.

The Problem Isn’t Streaming. It’s Ownership.

Let’s be clear: streaming itself wasn’t the problem. It was the promise that failed.

Streaming told us we were entering a golden age of access. It told us the gatekeepers were gone, the middlemen eliminated. It told us the future would be fluid, on demand, user-first. But instead of freedom, we got fragmentation. Instead of savings, we got subscription fatigue. Instead of the open web, we got app silos and shadow bans and DRM restrictions.

You don’t need a better platform. You need a better paradigm.

That’s where we come in.

Enter Streevo: The End of Digital Serfdom

Streevo is built on a radical premise: you should own what you watch. If you stream it, you should be able to store it. If you love it, you should be able to keep it. Your digital library should be yours—not licensed, not loaned, not leased. Owned.

Our device is an elegant black box that sits beside your TV or monitor. It doesn’t replace your streaming apps—it empowers them. With a single tap, you can locally record anything you stream and keep it in a personal, searchable library. No more licensing roulette. No more content FOMO. No more disappearing acts.

We’re not here to help you organize your subscriptions. We’re here to make them optional.

We believe in a future where digital access doesn’t mean digital dependence. A future where consumers are custodians, not cattle. A future where your memories, your taste, your media—belongs to you.

The lords won’t like it, but the system is already cracking.

We’re not the only ones feeling the shift. Piracy is creeping back. People are canceling subscriptions after single binge weekends. VPNs are on the rise. The post-DVD generation is buying them now. Users are tired of paying tolls to access what they’ve already seen, already loved, already paid for. The demand for control is outpacing convenience.

This isn’t fringe. It’s a market signal.

When consumers start finding workarounds, the system is failing. When they start walking away, the system is dying. The streaming empire is bloated, fragmented, and built on illusions of permanence. What comes next won’t be another app. It will be a new model.

Streevo isn’t some reckless rebel. We’re just the vehicle for an evolution that has already begun. We’re not fighting the future, we’re building it. 

Because in every unfair system, eventually…the peasants stop asking permission, and start building on a land of their own.