Everybody knows that at this point, the TV is dead. Nobody opens up the paper and checks to see what time Bargain Hunt is on, except for pensioner’s maybe. These days TV is just watched on streaming sites, those few programmes people watched can be found in both the legal and illegal fashion. Young people just watch these without the constraint of time, it makes life easier.

So why do students use these sites then? What can they offer that TV doesn’t? Well for starters we have the holy… the fabled… the cheap… Netflix! Netflix is essential for any student. You can browse it for hours and literally watch nothing, or 8 hours’ worth of content in one sitting. They have their own ‘Netflix Originals’ too, which might be the reason they are in a debt of billions but that’s beside the point. Netflix even brings content from US TV channels to their streaming service, negating a further need for the TV. Right now they have Rick and Morty season 3 and Star Trek: Discovery.

Whilst Netflix is the top dog there are a slew of other services too, like Hulu, Amazon Prime and HBO Go. Out of these few HBO Go is surprisingly my favourite one simply because it has Game of Thrones. Well that’s half the reason, as it also has a lot of Warner Bros specific content… which is a lot. And with the upcoming Watchmen TV series HBO seem to be on the up and up.

The problem with a service like Hulu, and others similar to it is that they attempt to charge extra for things like live TV or extra packages. Netflix doesn’t attempt this which is likely why most people pay for it.

In the last few years YouTube has decided to jump on this train, allowing streams, using the extra service YouTube Red to have original funded content for its YouTube Stars. In practise this is a great idea, however YouTube’s problem is that they are attempting to catch up with everything from Twitch to Netflix, and even TV. So they’re asking too much of their customers in too short a time.

Now what is there to say about services like Putlocker… it’s so simple, just search the internet for a movie and you’ll find it. Now should you do this? Is it ethical? Does it make you a pirate? Honestly I don’t think anyone reading this actually cares. Easily put because we’re all students and are being scammed by the government out of so much money anyway, so who cares if they see me watching 22 Jump Street for free on 123movies.com? Because I sure don’t.

So if this article is going to tell you anything I hope it is this, stick to Netflix and just torrent Game of Thrones anyway because a SWAT team isn’t going to turn up to your flat.

Will Nelson