Random thought of the day... United States v Paramount Pictures in 1948 forced all of the large studios to sell off their movie theatres. This was due to the studios forcing audiences to go to their specific theatres in order to view their films.

For example, a theatre owned by Paramount Pictures would only show Paramount films. They would create a hit film, and package it with several “b list” movies. This was called block booking.

The Supreme Court sided with the United States and eliminated block booking, and forced studios to sell their theatres. So now that we know the history behind it, here is my question....

How is it that production companies like @amazon, @netflix, @hulu etc can create original films and series, and force us to pay for their monthly service in order to view them? Isn’t that sorta the same thing as what happened in old Hollywood?

Not that I truly care about paying for their services, but shouldn’t their at least be options? If I want to watch Stranger Things, I HAVE to watch it on Netflix. Why can’t I view it on a different streaming service? Isn’t that what the Paramount Decision was for?

Again, I really don’t care either way. I’m just curious.