In January, NBCUniversal launched Seeso, a comedy-oriented streaming service that offers a relatively small but intriguing collection of new and old comedy in a range of modes: stand-up, sitcoms, cartoons, sketch and talk shows. It is available for $3.99 a month.

In a world where the thing everyone laughed about in January is the thing no one can live without by June, and where a gadget a kid makes in his parents' garage on Monday can kick-start a whole new industry by Friday, predicting the course, or even continued existence, of television is difficult, if not impossible. But we can say almost certainly that, for a little while at least, more and more content providers — to use a phrase that takes all the fun out of show business — will be exploring subscription models as a way to monetize their wares, stockpiled or newly minted.

Much as streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime have been remaking themselves into TV networks — close cousins to a premium cable add-on like HBO — TV networks are stealing back some of their thunder by setting themselves up as streaming services, offering content unavailable elsewhere. (Hulu is already a partnership among NBC, Fox and Disney-ABC.) CBS All Access, already up and running, will be the home of Bryan Fuller's “Star Trek” reboot next year, with other series planned to follow; Turner Classic Movies and the art-house video company Criterion (currently moving stock through Hulu) will partner on FilmStruck, coming this fall.

Although the web is still a place we go looking for stuff for free, consumers are comfortable paying for access — it's how you get the web in the first place. You can now watch HBO, Showtime and CBS by subscription, even without a cable provider or TV antenna; this may be how the popular idea of “a la carte,” pay-only-for-what-you-use television shakes out in the end. There will be only so many services any one consumer will want to order, of course, which means that some will fail; even free channels, like the late Yahoo Screen, once home to Paul Feig's “Other Space” and the post-NBC “Community,” can underperform themselves out of existence.

Naturally enough, Seeso puts an emphasis on the NBC catalog, with next-day replays of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” and full runs of “30 Rock,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Saturday Night Live” and, of all things, “Saved by the Bell.”

In addition, Seeso has left-of-center British comedies, including the complete “Monty Python's Flying Circus” (all the movies too), “The Mighty Boosh” and “The Young Ones,” and the many series featuring Steve Coogan's feckless, hapless broadcaster Alan Partridge.

Some new Seeso series are expanded versions of properties developed elsewhere on the web; recent entry “Gentlemen Lobsters,” a barely animated, highly verbal cartoon series about millennial humanoid roommate lobsters (the usual Oscar-Felix dynamic), comes from GQ's website.

Among my favorite Seeso series is the recently premiered “Hidden America With Jonah Ray,” a fake travel show that, as it is shot on location in cities around the country, also functions as a real travel show, albeit one full of phony histories and made-up people.

Stand-up doesn't always fare well imported from the room to the screen, but “Night Train With Wyatt Cenac,” built around the former “Daily Show” correspondent's weekly New York live show, is unusually satisfying, dry and smart. The premiere is set for June 30.