If you’re like me and the millions of other Americans who have canceled a cable television subscription over the past few years, you’re probably familiar with the phenomenon I’ve started calling “the hunt.”

It goes like this: First, you decide to watch one of your favorite shows — HGTV’s “Fixer Upper,” in my case. You plop down on your couch, turn on your TV and boot up your streaming device. Then you shuffle from app to app, trying to remember which of your half-dozen streaming services has the program. Was it Netflix? Hmm, no. HBO Go? Nope. Hulu Plus? It has the first three seasons, which you’ve already seen, but not the fourth.

You finally find the fourth season on Amazon, but it’s not included free with Prime Video. It costs $2.99 per episode. The hunt ends with a whimper: You sigh, suck it up (those kitchens aren’t going to renovate themselves), and fork over $19.99 for the entire season.

What happened to the glorious, consumer-friendly future of TV? We were told that the internet would usher in a golden era of streaming video, and that incredible shows and movies would be a click away through low-cost, easy-to-use services. The $100-a-month Time Warner cable packages that required navigating a byzantine menu of third-rate channels would be a distant nightmare.