When I turn on my TV and flick through the various streaming services my family pays for, I can’t help but wonder if the combined cost of all the services is truly worth it. As streaming services, video games, newspapers and social media platforms take over our day-to-day lives, the costs that come with them do as well. While these paywalls help support the quality of content and sustain employees’ livelihood, they may be limiting our exposure to diverse media and deepen the digital divide.

There’s no denying paywalls are necessary in a digital world. Companies cannot sustain themselves without a steady income. Instead of forcing ads onto the screen to generate money, these transactions, such as subscriptions or perks, help fund high-quality content and innovative projects. Many streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV+ use the money to create original television series or platform-specific films. Some of pop culture’s biggest shows like “Ted Lasso,” “Stranger Things” and “Wednesday” are all original series themselves. This influx of income also allows organizations to hire and maintain employees committed to the system, instead of letting them walk.

While the quality of content rises, so does the price. Netflix just recently bumped up their standard plan price from $15.49 to $17.99. Additionally, Netflix restricted accounts to just one household, instead of plans that span across the state. This caused many Americans to reconsider their monthly entertainment expenses. With these original series and service-specific movie series, the amount of streaming services one needs to watch all of them is excessive, with the average American household having 4.1 active subscriptions a month. In addition to streaming, many newspapers also require subscriptions of their own. They claim to provide higher-quality journalism, exclusive information and more educated content. Should that not be the bare minimum? Placing paywalls in front of the news is withholding public information, defeating the sole purpose of journalism: to inform society of current situations.

In addition to the limitations subscriptions impose, the services become exclusive. Paywalls create echo chambers of people with similar ideas being exposed to those with similar ideas and views. Social media sites become a selective scene of like-minded people going at those who don’t agree. In video games, we see pay-to-play games become pay-to-win with the introduction of in-game currencies and various perks. Those who either choose to not pay or simply can’t afford to eventually quit playing. This leaves a toxic environment for any new player to join, leaving many video games’s player bases to slowly deteriorate. It’s not just the user who suffers from paywalls, it’s the companies themselves.

Paywalls, whether they’re a monthly streaming service, a season pass in a video game, a weekly newspaper article or a premium social media experience, create disjunction in such a vast digital landscape. While some paywalls are only cosmetic, such as a video game, others, like the news, may hide crucial information from the public. While technology is constantly expanding and improving, companies must focus on the foundations they have already laid. By focusing on the quality of current content, companies should see greater success than constantly adding new features and struggling to maintain them.