Choose Your Fighter: The Best Streaming Service in 2019

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The streaming market has rapidly become more and more competitive. Image courtesy of Flicker.

It is Friday night, you finally get to relax after a long week, with your feet up and brain on cruise control. Only one more decision is to be made, Netflix or Hulu?

In order to figure out which service reigns supreme over others, we must look at a few determining factors starting with content, pricing/plans and overall experience.

“I prefer Netflix because they have a wider selection of not only movies but comedy shows, documentaries, talk shows and tv shows,” said FCC student Courtney Carr “Hulu seems to be more movies based.”

When it comes to discussing content, original content is what separates the streaming services. Both provide their own unique works but Netflix is known for its dozens of original films. Since Netflix doesn’t have to worry about reaching one target audience or generating ad revenue, they have more room for variety within their shows and movies. Some Netflix originals that gained popularity showcasing Netflixs flexibility in content are: “Orange is The New Black”, “13 Reasons Why”, “Bojack Horseman” and “Narcos”. Netflix provides cable television shows available to stream as well, but they emphasize on their original content.

Hulu recently has made their original content a bigger force with the addition of “Handmaid’s Tale” and “Pen15”. Hulu is also known for streaming shows that people want to rewatch but are no longer being aired on cable television. This advantage is due especially to Hulu’s co-owners, Disney, NBC Universal, and Warner Bros. Hulu has the upper hand when it comes to older but classic television shows such as: The Simpsons, Keeping up With the Kardashians and Seinfeld.

According to Hulu’s website, https://www.hulu.com/welcome

  • Basic: $5.99/month with commercials
  • Standard: $11.99 with no commercials
  • Hulu Live TV: $44.99/month allows up to 50 hours of DVR, no commercials and television networks such as: ESPN, Fox News, TBS, CNN, HGTV and FX

According to Netflix’s website,http://netflix.com/  all plans include offline download

  • Basic: $8.99/month: access to all shows and movies
  •  Standard: $12.99/month: allows streaming on two seperate devices
  •  Premium: $15.99/month allows  streaming on four different devices

The overall experience of each service is completely tailored to the viewer. Fresno City College students Gissell Rodriguez and Veronica Rodriguez say Hulu has a better selection of movies and their inclusion of adult cartoons makes them stand out over Netflix.

“Netflix has many different categories and overall their visual appearance is better to me than Hulu,” said FCC student Davante Sherman.

Netflixs algorithm is set to personalize each of their subscribers watch list and rates movies and shows based on what the viewer watches the most. This kind of consideration could mean a lot to subscribers who aren’t sure what to watch next.