Recently, Disney Plus launched the Star Channel. With it came a lot of content that came out of Disney's acquisition of Fox.

While it is a bit frightening to see so many popular brands now belong to Disney, there is a more pressing issue. The sheer amount of content on Disney Plus is highlighted by the awfulness of its interface, which is a handicap for one of the best streaming services to get better. [This is especially true for "younger" services like HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and Peacock. Especially "young" services like HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and Peacock have all sorts of problems that any sane person would notice and fix; Hulu has been working on this problem for years and has only recently gotten better, and the company has been working on it for years.

But what Disney Plus offers is its own special kind of bad. And while the design has cute animations for the section, it is certainly not befitting of one of the largest entertainment companies on the planet, nor a streaming service that is rapidly approaching its second birthday.

These days, it is very difficult to find something to stream unless you use a service like Apple TV Plus, which does not have a particularly large selection. Disney Plus has the opposite problem, and while it is not unique in that regard, its vast back catalog underscores the problem.

Even before Star's international launch, Disney Plus was overflowing with things to see. Not all of it is great, but the gist of the service is that it is effectively a "Disney archive." The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1923; acquiring Fox and rolling out content via Star made it even worse.

With so much content, the usual content recommendation algorithms can't keep up at all. This is evident in my Disney Plus account, where the "Recommended" tab shows Star Wars and Marvel titles. Also, there are a couple of Seth McFarlane titles, but I don't know why they are there.

These are not necessarily low recommendations, but they are still movies and shows I have seen before. Even though I'm trying to watch more diverse content on Disney Plus (mostly situation comedies, if I'm being honest), Disney could do a better job of introducing me to new titles from their recent acquisitions that are similar to what I already enjoy. If Netflix can do it, so can Disney.

Disney Plus already has a useful content discovery tool, but it is not as well promoted. For those who want more than the "channels" filter at the top of the home page (Pixar, Marvel, Nat Geo, Star, etc.), they may have trouble finding the Disney Plus content listings.

Have you ever seen the labels "Movies" or "Series" in the menu or search bar? That's because these submenus separate content by genre and list them alphabetically so you can find what you're looking for. However, depending on how you access Disney Plus, the placement of these submenus is not consistent.

This inconsistency is also problematic. Disney Plus on different devices offers a similar experience, but still clearly different. For example, the Disney Plus Roku app does not have access to all account settings, so it is not possible to change parental controls, for example.

Similarly, the placement of the menu bar varies from device to device. In a browser, it is at the top of the screen. On TV it is in a hidden side menu, and on mobile it is spread all over the place. My watch list is on my account page, for example, rather than near the more easily accessible home page. This should not be the case.

It is hardly a complete A-Z as seen on HBO Max. This way, you can sift through different types of content depending on your mood: if you get tired of sci-fi, you can choose thrillers or action movies.

This is a fairly useful feature, but it is not given the prominence it deserves. Especially when it is not consistently placed within the Disney Plus app. It's a real shame, because this list is much more useful than being able to search through all the Marvel and Star Wars movies. Because, let's face it, they are already so easy to find.

You may have noticed that Disney Plus lacks many of the basic features. For example, there is no option to skip to the next episode. Therefore, if you come across a film you don't want to watch, the only solution is to fast-forward to the end.

Then you have to wait for the next episode screen to pop up, which may take a little while, and manually skip the 30-second countdown. you have to manually skip the 30-second countdown. And for Marvel movies, the countdown and picture-in-picture layout are problematic.

Disney Plus also misses a lot of simple ways to curate content. Beyond the big brands and seasonal and topical collections, the best option for finding something new and interesting is to scroll through the carousel of new arrivals (admittedly, this is not just Disney Plus).

Additionally, unlike services like Netflix and HBO Max, there is no schedule of upcoming content. HBO Max, for example, made a big deal about the launch of Mortal Kombat last week. Netflix's mobile app, on the other hand, has a tab dedicated to content that will be available within the next month: originals Shadow & Bone and Jupiter's Legacy.

For Disney Plus, one should check the regional Twitter account to see what is announced each Friday.

Most of these are small improvements; Disney Plus has improved since launch. When Disney Plus first arrived in the U.S., there were complaints that something as basic as a "continue watching" feature was missing. This is the kind of thing that would be covered in Streaming 101. But still, there remains a larger problem...

The main problem I regularly encounter with Disney Plus is that the "Continue Watching" tab is basically broken. It only does the bare minimum of going back to (more or less) where you stopped watching. But that's it.

If you don't remember what's going on and want to know which episode to watch, you can't. Pressing the back button takes you back to the home screen, so if you want to go to the program's information page (or see the episode list), you have to search manually.

This is better on mobile, where pressing back takes you to the main page of the program. Again, these inconsistencies show that Disney Plus knows what is right, but does not apply it across the board.

What really bothers me, however, is that Disney Plus routinely erases the list of content that was being watched. And, as I have discovered, with shocking regularity. For example, I was watching "Bob's Burgers" last weekend. By Tuesday evening it was gone, and all I had in my queue was "Modern Family."

There was no sign of "Bob's Burgers," even though I stopped watching it mid-season. All because I was watching something else on the third day. Netflix, on the other hand, remembers that I watched one episode of "Superstore" about six weeks ago and won't let me forget it.

Additionally, it has a habit of making me watch the last minute or so of the episode if the show is still showing in the "continue watching" queue. Even if I have already seen it and watched it all the way through to the credits. If you finish watching to the credits and get out of your seat, Disney Plus will know that you have finished watching.

Unless Disney Plus gets their interface in order, this problem is going to continue to get worse. It's not just because of the content acquisitions Disney may make in the future. Disney's big deal with Sony to distribute the Spider-Man movie is a good example.

Disney has spent years licensing content to other services, and the slow transition to get all of that content back has been going on for years. Even in the U.S., where Star is unlikely to exist, the Disney Plus catalog is growing.

Therefore, Disney needs to address these issues quickly. This is because people can only watch the Marvel movies so many times in a row, and then they begin to wonder if it is really worth continuing their subscriptions.

Disney Plus does not need to give viewers a reason to reduce their feeds while they struggle to find interesting content, have basic interface problems, or something new comes out. Churn is a big problem in the streaming industry right now, and not everyone is signed up for a Disney Plus annual account. So Disney might as well get ahead of the curve and avoid scrambling to solve these problems before they become really serious.