But what if I want a faster horse?

All of the examples listed have something in common: they are services for accessing content you don't own. So it is in the provider's interest to find ways to satisfy you with less and/or cheaper content.

The Netflix changes aren't attempts to make their product better. They are attempts to save money by obscuring the amount and/or quality of available content.

By contrast, if you buy BluRays from one company and BluRay players from another company, everyones incentives are better aligned.

> It is therefore in the provider's interest to make you satisfied with less and/or cheaper content

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd think that all these "content companies" are colluding in a mass "Taste Removal" campaign, deliberately getting users used to bland, vanilla, generic "content" so they can one day just shove AI slop at us all day and only people who were alive in the 90s would remember when movies and TV were great. The rest happily will watch Ow, My Balls and ads for Carl's Jr.