New Book | STREAMING WARS: How Getting Everything We Want Changed Entertainment Forever | Journalist Charlotte Henry Explains How Streaming Changed Entertainment Forever | Redefining Society And Technology Podcast With Marco Ciappelli Redefining Society And Technology podcast

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New Book | STREAMING WARS: How Getting Everything We Want Changed Entertainment Forever | Journalist Charlotte Henry Explains How Streaming Changed Entertainment Forever | Redefining Society And Technology Podcast With Marco Ciappelli

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____________Podcast
Redefining Society and Technology Podcast With Marco Ciappelli
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____________Host
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____________Title
New Book | STREAMING WARS: How Getting Everything We Want Changed Entertainment Forever | Journalist Charlotte Henry Explains How Streaming Changed Entertainment Forever | Redefining Society And Technology Podcast With Marco Ciappelli
____________Guests:
Charlotte Henry
Author, journalist, broadcaster who created and runs The Addition newsletter looking at the crossover between media and tech.
The Media Society https://theaddition.substack.com/
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotteahenry/

____________Short Introduction
Journalist Charlotte Henry reveals how streaming transformed entertainment in her new book "Streaming Wars: How Getting Everything We Want Changed Entertainment Forever." From Netflix's rise to the 2023 Hollywood strikes, she examines how we consume media, express ourselves, and the surprising return to "old-fashioned" weekly releases in our Hybrid Analog Digital Society.

____________Article
We used to learn who someone was by looking at their record collection. Walk into their home, scan the vinyl on the shelves, and you'd know—this person loves Metallica, that person's into jazz, someone else collected every Beatles album ever pressed. Media was how we expressed ourselves, how we told our story without saying a word.

That's gone now. And we might not have noticed it disappearing.

Charlotte Henry, a London-based journalist and author of "Streaming Wars: How Getting Everything We Want Changed Entertainment Forever," sat down with me to discuss something most of us experience daily but rarely examine deeply: how streaming has fundamentally altered not just entertainment, but how we relate to media and each other.

"You can't pop over to someone's house after a first date and see their Spotify playlist," Charlotte pointed out. She's right—you can't browse someone's Netflix queue the way you could their DVD collection, can't judge their Kindle library the way you could scan their bookshelf. We've lost that intimate form of self-expression, that casual cultural reveal that came from physical media.

But Charlotte's book isn't a nostalgic lament. It's something far more valuable: a snapshot of this exact moment in media history, a line in the sand marking where we are before everything changes again. And in technology and media, change is the only constant.

Her starting point is deliberate—the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Not the beginning of streaming's story, but perhaps its most symbolic moment. Writers, actors, costume designers, transportation crews, everyone who keeps Hollywood running stood up and said: this isn't working. The frustrations that exploded that summer had been building for years, all stemming from how streaming fundamentally disrupted the entertainment economy.

My wife works in Hollywood's costume department. She lived through those strikes, felt the direct impact of an industry transformed. The changes Charlotte documents aren't abstract—they're affecting real careers, real livelihoods, real creative work.

What struck me most about our conversation was how Charlotte brings together all of streaming—not just Netflix and Disney+, but Twitch, Spotify, Apple Music, the specialized services for heavy metal or horror movies, the entire ecosystem of on-demand media. No one had told this complete story before, and it needed telling precisely because it's changing so rapidly.

Consider this: streaming is both revolutionary and circular. We cut the cord, abandoned cable packages, embraced freedom of choice. But now? The streaming services are rebundling themselves into packages that look suspiciously like the cable bundles we rejected. We've come full circle, just with different branding.

The same thing is happening with release schedules. Remember when Netflix revolutionized everything by dropping entire seasons at once? Binge-watching became our cultural norm. But now services are reverting to weekly releases—Stranger Things spread across quarters to ensure multiple subscription payments, Apple TV+ releasing shows one episode per week like it's 1995. We're going back to the future.

Charlotte's analysis of the consumer psychology is fascinating. We've been trained to expect everything, everywhere, immediately. Not just TV shows—beer subscription services, meal kits, next-day Amazon delivery. We subscribe rather than own. We stream rather than collect. And that shift has changed not just how we consume media, but how we think about possession, patience, and value.

The economic impact goes deeper than most realize. Writers who once created 24-episode seasons now produce 8-episode limited series but remain contractually bound to exclusivity, earning less while being unable to take other work. Meanwhile, streamers pump money into content, taking risks on shows that traditional networks never would have greenlit, creating opportunities for voices that wouldn't have been heard before.

It's complicated. Like all technological transformation, streaming brings both disruption and opportunity, loss and gain.

The data-driven nature of streaming is particularly interesting. Charlotte notes that often the most-watched content isn't the prestigious shows we discuss—it's the mediocre background programming people half-watch while scrolling their phones. Netflix figured this out and adjusted strategy accordingly. They still want the big shows, the water-cooler moments, but they've also embraced the second-screen reality of modern viewing.

And then there's AI—the elephant in every media conversation now. Charlotte dedicates a chapter to it because she had to. We're on the verge of being able to create Netflix-quality content with minimal human involvement. The 2023 strikes were partly about this, negotiating protections around AI use of actors' likenesses and voices.

But here's where Charlotte and I found common ground: we both believe AI might actually increase the value of human-made work. When everything can be generated, the authentically human becomes precious. The imperfect becomes valuable. The emotional becomes irreplaceable.

I'm seeing signs of this already. Bookstores packed with kids excited about physical books. Vinyl sales continuing to rise. People craving the tangible, the real, the human. Maybe we'll look back at this moment and recognize it as the turning point—not where AI replaced human creativity, but where we collectively decided what we value most.

Charlotte's book captures this inflection point perfectly. In our Hybrid Analog Digital Society, we're navigating between worlds—the physical and virtual, the owned and subscribed, the patient and immediate, the human and artificial. Understanding where we are now helps us choose where we go next.

As we wrapped our conversation, Charlotte and I bonded over our shared love of analog media—the CDs behind her, the vinyl behind those, my own collections scattered between Los Angeles and Florence. Two media nerds on opposite sides of an ocean, connected by technology that would have seemed like science fiction to our younger selves, discussing how that very technology is changing everything.

The streaming wars aren't over. They're just beginning. Charlotte Henry's book gives us the map to understand the battlefield.

Subscribe to continue these conversations about media, technology, and society. Because in a world of infinite content, thoughtful analysis of what it all means becomes the rarest commodity of all.

____________About the book
Streaming Wars: How Getting Everything We Wanted Changed Entertainment Forever
Streaming didn't just change what we watch. It changed who holds the power in entertainment.
Streaming Wars reveals how platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Spotify and Amazon Prime have transformed more than just entertainment. They've rewritten the rules of streaming services, media economics, power and visibility. Journalist Charlotte Henry explores what's really going on behind your screen, from Hollywood's 2023 strikes to the rise of ad-supported tiers, the global race for live sports and the slow fade of traditional TV.
With a sharp, accessible lens, Henry breaks down how AI, rebundling and fierce platform competition are driving a new era of streaming and why this shift matters now. Perfect for anyone who wants to understand how streaming is reshaping culture, business and what we watch.

Find it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Streaming-Wars-Getting-Everything-Entertainment/dp/1398622559
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You’re listening to this through the Redefining Society & Technology Podcast, so while you’re here, make sure to follow the show — and join me as I continue exploring life in this Hybrid Analog Digital Society.

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