Nobody ever looks at Netflix and complains "I never watch most of these shows, I shouldn't have to pay for them" because Netflix doesn't encourage people to think in those terms.
Cable companies caused the demand for de-bundling via a partial de-bundling. If you could get all channels for $50 then nobody would complain. But if they force you to buy half the channels for $25 and half the channels for $25, people start to wonder why they can't just get a quarter of the channels for $12.50.
This is true, but the problem I have with bundling is that it creates a distorted market. If I like, say, Firefly, I want to essentially vote with my wallet and encourage the creation of more like that. If I'm paying for a bundle, the networks get to churn out whatever garbage they want and I'm either locked in or locked out. While I can elect to just not watch what I don't like, I can't prevent my money being used to make more of it.
With the old networks, a lot of the decisions about what to make are based on advertising. For now, Netflix can decide what to make based on accurate viewing stats and their only motivation is to increase and retain subscriptions. As long as things stay that way, they are motivated to prioritise good content, which is a step in the right direction.
I do worry however, that they still need to serve a lowest common denominator mass market, so bundling leads us back to where we started, with a few high quality exclusives per channel (e.g., Stanger Things, Game of Thrones, Mr Robot), but ultimately we're still paying for a lot of unwanted garbage.
With this model, the "channels" aren't incentivised to do what IMO they should be: curating high quality content to specific demographics (anime fan, sci-fi fans, romcom fans, etc). Instead, they will just do the minimum needed to retain each of them, while not really doing a very good job for any of them.
Well you don't have to. I've never paid for cable. I have this crazy thing called an aerial which picks up television signals out of the goddamn vacuum.
But if people ever DID look at Netflix and think that, there are services (Amazon) that let you pay to immediately stream a particular movie/show. Netflix is for the people who think "I intend to consume enough content that buying/renting shows individually is more expensive than a bundle."
Or "I don't want to think about buying individual things, I just want a lot of stuff that I can watch without dealing with billing every time I want to tune into some entertainment". I see it as a UX and a psychology problem, really. If you tell users that each episode costs $1 to watch, they'll watch less than if you charge them $15 a month and make 1 14-episode season available, and they might only watch half of it.
It's the idea that you're spending money with a specific action vs spending in general to get access to something where you could theoretically have as much as you want. It's the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet in Vegas. You feel like you're beating the house, but the house always wins. In this case though, consumers also win, because it's ~$15/month with no ads and no BS vs $50-120+ a month with Comcast or DirectTV for ads + waiting to watch what you want + contracts (Comcast does e.g. 1-year contracts in some markets) + lots of BS (Comcast also "rents" movies and does things like pay-per-view). The house can still win while providing an order of magnitude better value, but the old business model exists due to their oligopoly and regulatory capture.
Because the complaint is actually more complex. It isn't simply that you are paying for stuff you don't watch, it is that you want to watch something good but there isn't anything good to watch. Then those other shows, the ones you don't want, look like they have pushed aside the things you are interested in. Netflix is different because in the streaming model nobody perceives one show as crowding out another. So those shows you don't want to watch aren't impacting your day and don't need to be removed.
But every popular movie on my TODO list is unavailable on Netflix, because they tend to produce their own content... After watching a dozen movies/series in the French catalog, there was no good content left to see.
From my perspective, Netflix follows a massive hot & cold pattern. Once a year or so, they'll license a bunch of great content, I'll watch a chunk of it, then a few months will pass before the next round of deals are struck and content made available.
My current "system" is to pay Netflix year-round and to subscribe to HBO Now when GOT is released (and catch up on other HBO content at that time) and cancel when it concludes.
I wish Amazon and Apple would get their shit together and allow/provide Amazon Video on Apple devices. That would fill in any gaps for no additional cost (I already pay for Prime for shipping benefits).
But I do look at all my streaming services in aggregate and feel a bit annoyed that I'm paying for Netflix, HBO and Hulu and I'm still buying a bunch of TV shows on Amazon.
Cable companies caused the demand for de-bundling via a partial de-bundling. If you could get all channels for $50 then nobody would complain. But if they force you to buy half the channels for $25 and half the channels for $25, people start to wonder why they can't just get a quarter of the channels for $12.50.