A few years ago, I subscribed to Netflix. That was it (no cable, no other streaming). The amount of good content was reasonable.
Now, I have to cycle through Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Apple, and Amazon. I unsubscribed to most of them most of the time, and resubscribe as a show or movie comes to my attention (Dune will get me resubscribed to HBO for a month or two, etc).
I still spend less on streaming than I did on cable, but if the whole ecosystem gets any more fractured or any more expensive or any more annoying to navigate, I'll probably start cancelling and just find something else to do.
Unfortunately, finding books isn't much better, or I'd likely spend more time reading than watching TV. But a bad book, for me, is 100x worse than a bad TV show.
I continue to subscribe to Netflix not because I'm thrilled with their selection but because there are a few things I want and it's the business model I want to support. Unlimited watches, no ads, I pay for access to a library. Fuck everything like Hulu and Prime with paid subscriptions that still include ads.
Maybe you should treat books like TV then: give it a half hour, and if you're not hooked, close it and find another.
I know many people say books take longer to enjoy, but a bad TV series can take ~12 hours per season. Most people can probably finish a novel in 12 hours.
Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way but I feel like books are more comparable to movies. A bad movie lasts under 2 hours and I can usually skip around without losing much context because pictures and video convey a lot more information than text. I can infer things that I miss based on background elements whereas in a book if the characters go to a different ___location, it's hard to know that unless I read the part where they go to said ___location.
A few years ago, I subscribed to Netflix. That was it (no cable, no other streaming). The amount of good content was reasonable.
Now, I have to cycle through Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Apple, and Amazon. I unsubscribed to most of them most of the time, and resubscribe as a show or movie comes to my attention (Dune will get me resubscribed to HBO for a month or two, etc).
I still spend less on streaming than I did on cable, but if the whole ecosystem gets any more fractured or any more expensive or any more annoying to navigate, I'll probably start cancelling and just find something else to do.
Unfortunately, finding books isn't much better, or I'd likely spend more time reading than watching TV. But a bad book, for me, is 100x worse than a bad TV show.