Sitting on my couch, flipping through the seemingly endless ocean of content, I find myself longing for the days of cable. It’s an odd thing to miss. I remember hating cable when I had it—sitting through commercials, scheduling my day around the airtime of certain shows. The cable companies and networks felt like my oppressors, forcing me to watch whatever they felt like broadcasting. I lacked choice. You could always change the channel, but there was no guarantee that the next one would offer deliverance from the previous.

When the streamers arrived, it felt like salvation. I could watch whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Finally, I could binge an entire television show without spending hundreds of dollars on DVD box sets. Then the streamers started producing their own content. It was thrilling to watch shows created outside the confines of traditional network broadcasting. Then there were more streamers. And more shows. A seemingly endless menu of choices—unfathomable in the days of cable. But along the way, something was lost.

With nearly every television show and movie available at the click of a button, choosing what to watch became difficult. I’ll start on Netflix, see if there’s anything good there. If not, I’ll head over to HBO Max—nothing there—why don’t I check Hulu? Wait, I forgot my Hulu password. I’ll just jump over to Peacock, and so on, and so on. With so much content spread across so many platforms, I get streaming paralysis. This often leads me to turn on something I’ve watched a thousand times before. Why not put on The Sopranos or Ocean’s Eleven? I know I’ll enjoy it the hundredth time around.

To combat this paralysis, the streamers developed algorithms designed to recommend content. Fine-tuned on hundreds of hours of my viewing habits, the algorithm (in theory) knows exactly what I like. But there’s a catch. The algorithm has a dual purpose: to keep me glued to my couch and to promote whatever content the streamer wants to succeed. “You’re going to love our new movie! PS: we need to recoup the $400,000,000 we spent making it.”

I know I’m not alone in this. Studies have shown that feeling overwhelmed is a common occurrence. Looking at Nielsen’s top 10 for streaming, we see familiar shows like The Big Bang Theory and NCIS—relics of the cable era, when networks churned out shows with 30-episode seasons spanning decades. I have nothing against these shows, but why are they still so popular when there’s a wealth of “prestige” television ripe for consumption?

I believe the streamers are missing something: formulaic, serialized television offering minor variations on familiar formats each week. Law & Order was popular for a reason.

Despite all its flaws, cable provided viewers with just the right amount of choice. Maybe there was a great rerun of The Office on NBC, or maybe AMC was airing Goodfellas—and if I tuned in at the right moment, I could catch the scene where Billy Batts gets killed. Limited to a set number of options, there was real excitement in finding something good. I think I’ve become numb to the amount of freedom I have now. I need someone to tell me what to watch. The algorithm tries to fill this void, but it’s too precise. One of the best parts of flipping through channels was stumbling across something you wouldn’t normally watch. You can still do that with streaming—but it takes a lot more effort.

Stumbling into a movie halfway through and thinking “What is this?” doesn’t happen anymore. Sometimes I find myself flipping through the free channels that came with my Samsung TV. Channels like the “Action Movie Network” and the “Classics Network” provide a steady stream of standard-definition B-movies that give me a brief taste of everything I’ve lost.

The rise of streamers has also contributed to the decline of the “monoculture.” With fewer options, more people used to watch the same thing every week. There was camaraderie in discussing the newest episode of House, M.D. or Mad Men. Now, with an endless sea of content and personalized algorithms, people’s viewing habits diverge significantly. These days, friends tell me about shows I’ve never heard of, and I respond with a great movie they’ve never seen on a platform they don’t use. Individualism is a good thing, but it comes at the cost of shared cultural experience. Entertainment can unite us—but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find common ground with people outside your household.

I weigh these thoughts against my feelings about the streaming revolution in music. For consumers, it’s arguably the best thing since the invention of the phonograph. Streaming has made the entire recorded history of music accessible to the public. The vastness of the catalog allows people to explore artists and genres that would have been unknown to them 20 years ago. Additionally, streaming has given artists a platform to release music outside the traditional record label system (at least in theory—see “Mood Machine” by Liz Pelly). I don’t miss the days of terrestrial radio the way I miss cable.

I’m not sure there’s a solution to my longing for cable. Maybe the streamers will pare back their output. Maybe I just need to make an effort to watch rather than browse. But there’s no denying that something was lost with the death of cable. Pandora’s box has been opened. Streaming is here to stay—but hopefully, we can reclaim some of what was lost.