In many ways, paid streaming services and free streamers have grown closer together in recent years. Almost all streaming services now have an ad-supported tier that costs less than ad-free plans do, and free streamers like Pluto TV, Tubi, and The Roku Channel are creating their own original content, adding sports, and using other tactics that have made paid streamers so popular in their time.

But there’s one way that free streaming services haven’t caught up to paid platforms just yet: the ability to download TV shows and movies for offline viewing remains solely a function of paid streamers for now. Unfortunately, there is no way to download titles on Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, or Tubi.

Even paid streaming services don’t often allow viewers to watch downloaded TV shows and movies on ad-supported tiers. Netflix and Prime Video allow customers of ad-supported and ad-free tiers, but other streamers like Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, and Peacock only let viewers download titles if they are on ad-free plans.

Why don’t more streaming services allow downloads with ads? The mechanics of putting ads into an episode or film are quite a bit different when a viewer is not watching that title via a live connection. Figuring out which ads to put with which titles, and how to satisfy all ad partners by giving everyone a fair slice of revenues and air time, has to be extremely tricky.

Without getting the added benefit of subscription revenue, there’s little incentive for a streamer to devote the time and resources to solving these puzzles. Since Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, and Tubi will never — at least, customers hope they won’t — charge subscription fees to watch their content, it’s safe to assume that none of them will rush to add the ability to download titles any time soon.

There’s another important reason that free streaming services like these likely won’t add the ability to download is that most — if not all — of their content is licensed from other studios. Even licensing deals between paid streaming services and studios don’t always allow customers to download every title they can stream with their plan, and having to get studio approval to offer customers a download feature would be a huge headache for Pluto, Roku, and Tubi, at the very least.

Could all of that change in the future? Anything is possible. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up that any of these three major free streamers will add the ability to download TV shows and movies for offline viewing any time soon