Magazines and Columbia House – those used to be my only subscriptions. It started as Boys’ Life, Sports Illustrated Kids, and Nintendo Power, and Columbia House gave me the cheap introductory penny CDs. Eventually, Wired and GQ showed up, as well as the mandatory monthly mailing from the Columbia House Movie Club because I forgot to log on and decline it. (Seriously, Columbia House ended up being the absolute worst.) Then, there was Netflix, then Hulu, then HBO Go (back in the day). The subscription life has a hunger that knows no sating, and there are plenty of companies willing to feed it.

Everything has a “subscribe and save” or membership attached to it, and if you’re paying for it, you need to pay more for the actual convenience of having a paid service. You initially pay for the access to a service at its basest, barest bones level. Want to get rid of ads or access the feature a company is known for, like fast shipping or a consumer-friendly return policy, that’s extra each month, or, you can pay for an entire year up front with a discount so the company still makes more than it deserves and knows you’re theirs for twelve months. I’ve subscribed to more than I should, and I don’t fault anyone for doing the same. It’s hard not to be a sucker these days. At some point, abstaining from ubiquitous conveniences no longer feels worth the hassle. It’s too much of a fight.

My case in point, this year’s Major League Baseball Field of Dreams game featured my beloved Minnesota Twins. (See why I don’t spurn conveniences? I’m punished enough.) Annoyingly, the game was only going to be shown on Netflix (just straight up dumb). We had been Netflix-free for over a year, but I wanted to see my favorite team play in a game set in an over-commercialized ballpark set adjacent to an over-ceremonialized movie set. So, I resubscribed the day of the game.

I planned to do the lowest level of subscription, with ads, which Netflix promised are fewer than I’d expect. During the sign-up process, they hit me with an offer for a month of the top subscription tier for the price of the base level. I know that is done to showcase how nice ad-free viewing is, even though Netflix promises the ads aren’t that bad. They also probably hope I forget to cancel or change my subscription at the trial’s end, therefore milking me for an extra month or two. Despite my skepticism, I’d be a fool to not take the upgrade at no extra cost, so I did.

The Field of Dreams game was bad. The Twins were horrible, and there is some pretty thick irony in having sports betting advertised on the fence at the Field of Dreams and a player like Barry Bonds doing the pre-game show when it was clear he had maybe watched the movie the night before, and even then, I’m not sure how much he paid attention. Having Netflix back on the screen, however, was like visiting an old friend. My previous watchlist had been removed, and I had to start from scratch rebuilding my recommendations. There is a lot of hastily-produced slop delivered under the guise of quality to feed their “show or flick of the week” model. For example, The Last House features some acting acclaim with Greta Lee and Wagner Moura, but the film is a mess (like, shockingly bad). I watched it and despised myself for making it to the credits. Conversely, there is quality buried in there too, actual well-made entertainment. Ozark and Narcos always had me hooked. Plus, I’m a sucker for a good sports documentary, so, admittedly, I’ve spent most of my return to Netflix watching Quarterback. If nothing else, that show highlights the emotions athletes encounter when the wheels come off. It’s a genuine human display, even under the bright lights.

I don’t know if Netflix will save its place in our household. I suspect once the ads return, the value proposition of what the service offers in terms of quality disappears. Additionally, there’s still an intrinsically rewarding feeling when removing the dependency on another subscription. Streaming entertainment, however, is just a sliver of the enmeshed tangle of the subscription-verse. From TV to razor blades, it’s all marketed in the name of convenience and access, and in a complex world, we’ll always be looking for a way to make things easier. Some of it is crap and some of it is actually good and beneficial – just don’t give me ads.