The news that FilmStruck is closing down isn’t exactly surprising but it does strike a chord because, aside from MUBI, it was one of the only streaming services to focus on curating movies outside of the mainstream. If you go to iTunes, Netflix, or Amazon you’ll see plenty of movies on offer but most of them are blockbusters, copy cats, or self produced, and most of it is TV.
The strange thing is that iTunes actually has many of the movies from Filmstruck, they’re just impossible to find because they don’t focus on that segment and don’t focus either on curation or personalized recommendations. This is yet another of those huge digital blind spots, we may have access to more media than ever before, finding it is another thing. Just imagine if you didn’t even know to look for it to begin with?