To understand where entertainment and media content is going, we must first look at where it has been. For most of the 20th century, media was a one-to-many broadcast model. Three major television networks, a handful of major film studios, and a few powerful publishing houses dictated what the public watched, read, and listened to.
The internet changed everything. The 1990s introduced the first cracks in the broadcast model via forums and personal websites. The 2000s brought peer-to-peer sharing (Napster, LimeWire), which, while legally contentious, proved a massive consumer appetite for on-demand access. Finally, the 2010s solidified the shift with streaming services (Netflix, Spotify, Hulu) and social media platforms (YouTube, Instagram, Twitter). Suddenly, was everywhere, personalized, and available 24/7.