Streaming Solved Distribution and Broke the Business Model

The cable bundle was, underneath the complaints about it, an extremely effective subsidy machine: broadly popular channels quietly funded niche ones, and every subscriber paid for content they never watched so that content nobody thought they'd miss could keep existing. Streaming dismantled that bundle at consumers' request, and it worked exactly as intended — people now pay only for what they want.

The side effect is that the cross-subsidy disappeared along with the bundle. Content that depended on riding along with more popular programming now has to justify its own economics directly, which is a much harder bar to clear. This is why so much of the streaming era has been defined by cancellations and consolidation rather than the abundance early adopters expected.

Unbundling always does this: it makes the popular thing cheaper and the niche thing more exposed. Streaming didn't break media economics — it just made the trade-off visible.