Stan

Stan is an Australian streaming service. It's actually pretty popular here, too; apparently it's subscriber count is second only to Netflix's.

In terms of user interface, it's pretty similar to Netflix, which is fair enough, because there's only so many different interfaces you can have for a streaming service like this. Broadly speaking, if you're a fan of Netflix's interface, you'll probably be a fan of how this site is laid out as well.

I think Stan's biggest issue is that it doesn't really have much of a niche. It's more like an aggregate site more than it is its own thing. Most of its exclusive shows tend to be stuff like Looking For Alaska, which were originally made for different services in the United States, or they're Australian-made stuff that maybe two people total have watched. At least with other popular streaming services, the people running them can make an argument about what the niche is--Disney+ is focusing on being family friendly, Netflix has increasingly focused on its original content in the last few years, and Amazon Prime focuses on being the worst overly monetised nightmare imaginable.

The good thing about its content selection has tended to be that it has a lot of older shows from the '90s and '00s that I remember watching in high school (stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1), along with some older movies from the '50s and '60s like Run Silent, Run Deep, Barbarella, and Rear Window. I feel like it'd probably be a good business strategy for the site to double down on this kind of content going forward because there's not really any other services in Australia that are readily hosting a wide range of older movies and shows.

Still, the user interface is at least usable, and it has a pretty respectable selection, so it's still a decent service. I'm not really sure if it's worth $14 a month, especially at a time when there's so many streaming services that paying for multiple services can cost as much as pay TV did 10-15 years ago, though.