We come to streaming services to relax and enjoy the latest TV has to offer, but as you’ve surely discovered by now, precious leisure time can be easily spoiled by a service’s unfortunate design, frustrating features, buggy controls, and endless lags.
How many of us have logged on to HBO Max excited by the arrival of the latest prestige show, only to be thwarted by the platform freezing multiple times despite clicking refresh for the nth time? Or maybe you’ve gone to Amazon Prime to look for a nice weekend watch, but its clunky, 2000s-era design immediately turned you off and transported you to a more usable platform.
Now, to be fair, Amazon Prime has since redesigned its homepage to look cleaner and more appealing, and HBO Max promises to eliminate all lags once it's merged with Discovery+. But if anything, this just proves the significance of having a user-friendly interface. Netflix may not be coming up with the most original shows at the moment, but its sleek and intuitive platform gives it an edge over the competition. And the same can be said of Disney+, whose neat homepage and searchable categories makes it a no-brainer when looking for something to watch.
All of this is to say that a service can produce all the binge-worthy, discussion-sparking content they want, but if they’re not putting in the effort to make the interface usable, then they still have a ways to go to win the streaming wars.
So without further ado, below are all the streaming services—on-demand and live—that won't give you a headache navigating their corners.