Nearly a third of TV ads play to empty rooms
news.cornell.edu
news.cornell.edu
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zipp...
It's pretty vague, but my reading of this is that it's paid out of a single pool based on the watch time of all YouTube Premium Members. So e.g. if you only watch one video a month, that creator doesn't get all of your money.
If so, maybe I should seek out worthy YouTubers to donate to be leaving it running in the background.
Cant you just buy some other toys for your cats?
For Saudis 5.1
Mi wife family, just some km away, they have the TV on during all they long, it freaks me out. My toddler is the one that shuts it down for them, because he 'can not hear them' if TV is on.
My generation, few even have a TV. We're one of the few with one in the living room (hooked up to a laptop though), and I think I haven't turned it on in a month now?
But if you don't turn your TV on at all, I have to ask - where do you watch Netflix et al? Or you simply don't?
Last series I followed was Breaking Bad. Used to torrent it and watch on laptop screen.
I watch tv shows on streaming services with no commercials, on demand when I want to, and only when it’s an ‘event’ where we plan to focus on the story being delivered. My father watches broadcast television, flipping channels regularly, leaves the commercials on half the time, and always has the tv blaring in the background the entire time we are at his house even for hours at a time and during a holiday gathering.
You can be negative and try to classify the difference between us as a pedantic technicality or you can join the conversation about this interesting and seemingly generational difference in what it means to “watch tv”.
I have never had a Netflix account.
At this point, I have been offered pretty nice TVs for free more than once.
If you really get use to living without a TV though it feels like it has negative value to have one IMO. Even more now with Netflix and long binge watch series with disappointing endings.
Of course, I don't get to participate in the conversations about how much show X ending sucked after wasting a week of my life on it.
i do think that TV is fine in moderation like everything else, but, like social media and video games, overconsumption is socially normalized. putting off work and keeping yourself healthy for shows or endless scrolling isn’t okay IMO.
If you don't watch anything on whatever you're using to post your messages to HN then fine but if you do then you're still "watching TV" for all intents and purposes.
Consider, here are some activities I do, which of them are you sure is "watching TV" and which aren't? Is it such a clear bright line?
* I watch "Only Connect" - a very difficult BBC Two quiz show - on the iPlayer web site. There aren't any adverts of course because it's the BBC, but this was made to be shown on a broadcast TV channel even if I haven't watched it that way for years.
* I watch the Two Ronnies "Mastermind" sketch on Youtube. Once again this was made to be shown on broadcast TV, decades ago, as part of an episodic show - but now this is just one sketch
* I re-watch the final sale decision scene from The Big Short on Youtube. The Big Short is a movie, this was never made for broadcast TV, and all I'm watching is one clip from a much longer work.
* I watch previews of a friend's review of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Most of these were movies. (but there is a TV series) and he doesn't include clips but he does talk about them. This will eventually be a Youtube video, but I'm watching the preview.
* I watch an SC2 AI Arena playback of a match that happened recently between two AIs. It's video, at least by the time it reaches me, but it was never intended to be broadcast anywhere, many of these videos are never watched by anyone they're generated automatically so why not.
* I play a video game with an FMV cut scene, such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert.
* I play another video game with a cut scene but it's in-engine using the game's 3D assets, such as GTA3.
* I join a Teams call with colleagues to discuss progress on our main Project
* I watch a rather hypnotic screensaver of overlapping fractal shapes.
* I read a web page with some simple animated multi-step tutorials. Is it important whether they're animated with Javascript, GIFs or MPEG video?
* I read this comment on Hacker News.
It used to be synchronous broadcast on a schedule, on a channel chosen from a small selection. If you watched TV, you could be reasonably expected to talk about the thing that was on last night.
With on demand, scheduled releases etc. it's much less well defined. If you only watch movies on Netflix, it's probably not "TV" as a cultural artifact, but if you're watching the latest Star Wars or Marvel series on Disney, then probably you are, despite there being little difference in technology.
No
There are some situations where I come in contact with televisions today. They make me feel frustrated because they sap away my attention. I read more, I do hobbies, and I spend more time with people and have better relationships. It feels like an easy trade-off.
i remember one time specifically when my family was all watching “House” (super popular TV show on FOX back in 2004-ish?). I think I wanted to use my laptop or something; don’t remember. My parents got really mad at me, insisting that I watch with them. Ended up doing so, begrudgingly. I get why they did that (family time) but I didn’t like that our family time was spent in front of a screen.
> There are some situations where I come in contact with televisions today. They make me feel frustrated because they sap away my attention.
YES! I can hate watching TV and be angrily fixated on it when at a bar at the same time. My wife doesn’t get it lol
i don’t watch TV on my own accord. usually with my wife (when she wants to watch something) or when i’m forced to while at a bar or restaurant (many bars, especially around here in southwest Texas, have MANY TVs, almost all of them tuned to some variant of sportsball). when i travel by myself, the tv in the hotel room never turns on, for example.
sorry if this comes off as me being vain; I never tell anyone and having a soapbox to finally talk about it is awesome!
i’ve only been to Europe once so far (Barcelona) and restaurants and bars without TV was one of my favorite things ever. this experience only exists in big cities.
however, netflix, hulu, and youtube premium probably think differently of me lol (i pay for these services but my wife consumes them)
Don't even own a TV. I own a projector / home cinema. I think it beats the shit out of a TV big times. I much prefer the "feel" of a projector compared to these 4K TVs or whatnots. When we turn the projector on, it's to really watch something, not as background noise.
I watch video content on my 15.6" laptop with a retina display. The picture is subjectively larger, brighter, and sharper than on a TV because it's closer to my eyes. It's like in a movie theater but with lots of privacy. So I prefer it this way. I would turn on a TV only if I'd want to watch something with another person, I guess.
The best way I can describe the effect of silence is like what brains do in extreme sensory deprivation: they begin imagining and hallucinating external stimulus. Silence makes my internal stream of consciousness stark. It is severe to the point of causing me decades of insomnia. As soon as I lay in bed, if I don't have white noise or otherwise, the recursive nature of my thoughts spirals immediately into existential panic.
Anyways, I love TV.
Take it from me. Ignoring your mortality is a lot easier.
After that I was able to do 30-60 minute sittings at home and experience the associated change. If you're also a very cerebral person you may also need a similarly concentrated "boot camp" or similar to get to some base level.
In a similar vein, if someone has extremely weak physique, it's not really convincing when they claim that physical exercise doesn't work for them, as they did spend 150h at the gym machines ;)
I've wanted to do a retreat very badly. I would need to work to organize my current world to fit it in but it's something I have in the back of my mind.
You are not one but many, and the ego is truly the only thing that dies in death we fear.
I have a thing where I get weird anxiety ~18hr after I eat pasta, maybe you get something similar.
If your anxeity has a biological cause (ie excess cortisol or something), then modulating what you put into your body may help.
Or maybe you just need to accept that every moment might be your last and try to enjoy it. :)
It actually changed my life, now I can sleep and be like a normal person. I used to joke that I was a C-type person (instead of A/B) when it comes to sleep.
Brains are weird.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...
Yes. Background noise is the radio's job. Why waste energy keeping a panel on if nobody's gonna look at it?
With YouTube some body decided during the pandemic to cram commercials in the middle of videos now, so music sets are ruined and all comedic timing as well. Anything I plan to watch more than once I use ytdlp because of the huge number of ads they've started cramming in to the start middle and end.
In the car the radio is only bearable if you have atleast three stations in your area that play genres that are enjoyable or you get lucky and you happen to be in the car when a live DJ is on, usually at some point during the rush hour commute or a weekend night.
In slovenia, NY eve means a few movies on some channels, maybe even a movie marathon (home alone 1-5, etc.), and on one channel, from about 23h->00:30 the next day/year some "funny" show, with a few songs, a host+guests talking about stuff and a countdown. So basically stuff that you have to watch and listen to in whole.
In serbia for example, the show lasts for 6h+, and it's basically 99.9% music, except for a joke or two inbetween songs and a countdown with happy wishes for new year, and it's designed to be played "in the background", where noone really cares about the show, unless it's a song they really really like and turn the volume even higher. example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ9-w8qlpEY
https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/all-tvs/p/...
https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/television...
They need to go down.
Microsoft's Kinect, the always-on 3D camera/mic that could have been used to read people's facial expressions while watching ads. I'm glad it failed.
Google speakers which have a microphone array they use to measure the shape and size of your room. Definitely only for acoustic purposes of course...
And some people pay money for that, which makes me fear this might become standard in all kinds of devices. Those things aren't even that great in terms of features. In movies like "I, robot" the machine overlords were at least useful for cooking.
> In Soviet Russia, you watch TV. In modern world, TV watches you.
So it blows you away while ads run and you don't understand any word of the movie.
Don't worry, we also do this in the US.
They increase the volume of the adverts in comparison to the show. Often it is not subtle. Aside from the abysmal and declining information density of TV, it's a key reason I've not had antenna/cable for almost two decades now. The big screen is just a big monitor.
Of course, as you mention, they can just peg the sound levels in across all frequency bands on all tracks in the ad, and yes, it does sound louder that way.
Of course, if they actually want to get people's attention so they try to listen, they should whisper.
found this using andisearch which was linked around yesterday. It's a sony patent, and it has a person say "McDonald's!" to end a McDonald's ad on a TV.
I guess large swaths of people never actually read 1984.
So you think having a camera on the TV is worse than having a device with a camera and a bunch of others sensors with you at all times?
Orwell couldn't imagine a portable device, so obviously it's the TVs with cameras that are bad... not any of the actual devices used for mass survelliance.
Being weary of TVs with cameras does not proclude me from beating weary of phones. I very much am.
> Proximity Alert allows you to set an adequate viewing distance for your child and displays an overlay notification if they get too close to the TV.2
Let's not talk about how strong my glasses prescription is, some decades later lol.
The other day at midnight I was woken up by an Amber Alert for a somewhat nearby town. It's not possible to disable these notifications in this country, as far as I know.
custom ROMs can work around that.
In an ideal world, broadcasters would use this data to become aware of which ads are so loathsome that they drive away viewers.
Ad revenue is a win. But if a particular ad (more than others) causes people to leave the room or change channels, the following ads will get less views, and that could be a loss.
If you actually know when that happens, you could charge advertisers extra if their commercials are too annoying. Or just not even air those ads.
I've done it my entire life.
I think advertisers have been dialing up the attention grabbing features over the years, and those constantly exposed don’t notice. Those who haven’t been watching now experience being exposed to the equivalent of ten babies crying for your attention. It’s truly and attack on your senses and sanity, but you have to remove yourself from it for a time to see how bad it is.
Could even put some federated learning into the bag for a slight dystopian flavour - and that sweet VC allure - to also listen to people hitting mute & unmute as a semi-reliable labelling feature. Just sample the time window recording of the frequency spectrum and it may be good enough already.
It wouldn't be foolproof but just good enough I guess. I'd be willing to pay 200$ for a ad silencing IR transmitter with >90% recall.
The device you would pay $200 for used to cost $40: https://bgr.com/general/mute-tv-commercials-automatically-ho...
That's what (used to?) happen to music during the so-called loudness war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
The apparent rise in amplitude is horribly annoying; but I understand that actually increasing the volume during ad-breaks is forbidden (at least in the UK). Instead, they tailor the audio spectrum to create psycho-acoustically the impression of increased loudness.
Automated ad-filtering on broadcast TV seems to be a hard problem. Some filters look for the channel logo screen at the start and end of the ad-break; but (a) you have to set up each channel; (b) "sponsors" now book slots at the start and end of the break, before and after the channel-logo screen.
The best solution I've found is to record anything I want to watch in advance; then to skip forward 5 minutes when the break starts, and FF/RW if I land in the wrong place. I'm a bit surprised that so many people seem to be buying big-screen TVs, but apparently not STBs with hard-disk recorders.
One approach that occurred to me is to take advantage of the fact that same ads are played in different TV shows.
Suppose you record hundreds or thousands of hours of TV video/audio, then compare it to your program guide data.
In theory, you should be able to detect that some segments of the video/audio correlate very strongly with what show you're watching (occurring only there), whereas other segments of video/audio appear all over the place in different programs.
And use fingerprinting to avoid having to store/transmit all that video/audio data.
This is not that different from what Shazam does with music recognition, although their job is easier because their audio data is naturally segmented into songs, whereas for ad detection you have to find segments. But I bet there are algorithms to efficiently find common sub-sequences (maybe from DNA bioinformatics?).
Once you have fingerprints of commercials, you distribute a database of these to viewers, and their device uses it to detect commercials while watching.
---
For programs that air more than once, you could invert this and look for segments of video/audio that are common between the airings. The rest is more likely to be commercials, especially if you've got a movie that airs on different networks.
Or if you can see a show/movie through on-demand, maybe you'll get different commercials on repeated viewings.
---
Another approach is facial recognition. If you see Flo from Progressive, it's probably an ad. You can maybe even recognize new, unknown ads this way.
If you want to go really crazy, mine IMDB for TV/movie titles, the cast that appear in each, and their photos, then recognize non-ad video footage based on who you know is supposed to be in that episode.
My mother had a really obnoxious attitude towards the television. Probably because of this I don't have a TV at all and am always suprised by the amount of people who immediately notice when they visit my house.
"Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen fragen Sie Ihren Arzt oder Apotheker."
which translates to:
"Concerning risks and side effects please ask your doctor or pharmacist."
It's like pestering users with alerts. After a certain point, you can't really blame someone for tuning them out and just clicking OK.
https://metro.co.uk/2020/12/18/covid-vaccine-volunteer-struc...
(Hard to find a nice source for this because there's a metaphor going around now about covid vaccines and lightning, but I saw it around more at the time. If anyone is better at search engines with date filtering or has a super reputable link, please share it below)
Now, here in The Netherlands with my KPN TV-over-fiber connection, I can skip around in a show, but I can't skip over ads on many channels. The device sometimes doesn't even let me mute during an ad! I can independently mute or switch video inputs, so it's basically forcing me to either hear or see an ad.
I pay about the same for Netflix. So obnoxious.
Called out my dentist on this and he listened.
Therefore, I got very good at mentally tuning ads out. I can watch an ad 100 times yet not be able to tell you what they said, what happened in it, or what product it's for.
Sometimes I mute now, but only when the ad is top 10% annoying. It's often easier to just tune out the ads than to remember to unmute.
It is always breathtaking to consider how much has been built on the back of advertising, I guess because there is no better option.
But always remember that it is fundamentally bad UX: content providers forcing consumers to do something unpleasant, that they would rather not do, in exchange for the content.
Nobel Peace Prize to the person or organization who figures out the business model to take us beyond this absurd paradigm.
I'm gonna take that sentence to it's logical conclusion and rebut it with "I like that restaurants have signs, and I appreciate when I can see the menu from the outside"
Edit: typo
PiHole allegedly helps with that, but afaik PiHole is only a DNS blacklister, and I already have blocked Google adservers troguh my router, tho that does not seem to help with ads in the YouTube mobile/tablet app.
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-adblock-privacy/id1047...
Without that YouTube is unusable for me anymore. It's not about the video ads at all. Ads are part of the modern design of YouTube and are difficult to differentiate from, f.e. the comments, which are hidden by default - wtf?
I watch YouTube usually because I have something else to do, and I needed something to make a sound + be my timer. If an ad starts to play, it will not effect my main task. 5 or 10 seconds later the Skip button displays, I click/tap on it and continue my task, and the ad will be forgotten almost instantly.
I don't think those ad makers knows how ads actually work: you only have certain amount of seconds to convert a client. After that, the ad will be forgotten. People who interested in your product will sign on after few encounters with the ad. And for those who didn't sign on, they don't care and pushing more ads will simply annoy them and makes them hate your product.
For example, those 5 seconds TikTok ads are low quality and extremely annoying (, making me believe that ByteDance is using the strategy to downgrade the user experience of YouTube. Very clever indeed), I'll never sign on no matter how many times it plays.
For me personally, I like to take my time to read the detail about a product, those video ads just can't cut it. The text + picture based ads displayed by Reddit catches me better.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90185994/sony-files-patent-to-ma...
On the one hand you prevent anyone else from using it for a period of time, but on the other hand you give them ideas that they might not have had.
Well, for 20 years, not forever.
Imagine if I had patented "System for using the Internet to distribute misinformation regarding respiratory viruses, so as to maximize deaths during a pandemic." Facebook would show up later and already be illegal, and a lot less people would have died of COVID.
I doubt the example in your second paragraph is remotely plausible. But I can see how someone might come up with a better example.
Btw, violating a patent isn't illegal in the criminal sense of murder being illegal. As far as I know patents are more about civil liability, and you'd have to sue Facebook for damages, don't you?
That would make doing business quite a lot more expensive for Facebook, of course. But wouldn't ban what they are doing outright.
I don’t know if it’s narcissism or a human way of justifying their actions. For humanity’s sake I hope the latter.
That said, one way to look at it from an advertiser’s perspective is that if you spend money on anything, then relevant ads must exist, and they will continue to try to find them. If they can’t find them, they’ll still continue to spam us with irrelevant ads because they still work a little; statistically, a few people will buy the product for every million people who see the ad.
I spend money, and I even sometimes spend significant amounts of time trying to figure out what to buy when I need something I don’t know a lot about. I also spend far more time than I want to trying to ignore ads I don’t care about on the internet and YouTube, just like I used to with TV.
Those are two separate time sucks, and I’d love to have ads at least be teaching me impartial information about whatever it is I’m shopping for, and help me figure out what I need. It would save me time if I could merge ad watching time with shopping research time. Google and advertisers would love that too. But the level of invasive privacy compromise that would bring would be a million times worse than the bad situation we already have, I’m not willing to accept it.
And “advertorial” is not a web-era idea; the travel, sports, entertainment etc sections of the newspaper, and most of local television news, looked like news but were essentially all paid content one way or another.
Where is the nearest Prodafanilexicol store?
When does the sale end?
How many satisfied customers does Megacorp have?
Ok, enough people have answered correctly now, we will tell the players to come out for the 2nd quarter.
https://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious-terr...
> a user is watching a television program which is interrupted by an ad. The ad instructs the user to say the word “McDonald’s” (MCD) to speed things along.
(It seems to be a battle of content, with all sides fighting for all that long-term MRR, and no-one really has a monopoly on great content. Which is actually pretty great! Of course local stations don't have great content because their sample size is too small.)
At least on desktop, when letting background tabs play some youtube playlist it will stop after a while with a “are you still watching ?” popup.
SponsorBlock. It changed how I consume YT. It has saved me a ton of time.
Some English-language (probably machine-translated) article: https://www.archyworldys.com/prima-will-not-back-down-televi...
I wonder whether this will be the beginning of the end of the classic TV.
[1] (in German): https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/neue-regelung-fern...
"The viewing behaviors may include the viewer [108] watching an item of linear video content, or watching a combination of items of linear video content. Additionally, the viewing behavior may include an action performable by the viewer [108] and detectable by one or more sensors [106], such as a depth camera."
"However, in some embodiments, physical awards may be granted. Such physical awards may include coupons, products, etc., given to the user. To grant a physical award, an entity associated with the user-viewing goal, such as a user-viewing goal creator, may be notified in order to grant the award. In other embodiments, a remote computing device which stores user profile information, such as the digital media delivery service, may be notified to grant the award."
[0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvnba/moviepass-20-wants-to...
Oh, there is a need, alright. If they claim they're not interested, it's time to shift strategies[1]. After all, nobody's immune to advertising[2]. I'm sure there are more relevant studies that prove even ad-averse individuals are still susceptible to them. It's just a matter of finding the right _kind_ of advertising to reach them. Doing this effectively is what gets you promoted in adtech.
Advertising is a cancer on society.[3]
[1]: https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/the-psychology-behind-why...
[2]: https://knowledge.insead.edu/marketing/think-youre-immune-to...
[3]: https://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/moviepass-track-eyes-phon...
I think there was a movie with something like that, if the guy closed his eyes, the ad would pause and wait until he looked again.
I hope I am too cynical...
put 4 or 6 cameras and analyze your gaze to figure out what part of screen you are paying attention to and if your pupils dilate when you see a product/model picture
I wonder if some UI and navigation can become interactive based on gaze too
obviously it will be ruined just like pop-ups and modals
I wonder if skipping YouTube ads is already used in a similar way?
Pressing that small "skip" button is a user interaction that acknowledges the users attention to the ad, and there is usually a minimum time the ad has to run before it can even be triggered.
So having an ad run for 5-10 seconds, with a manual skip, might possibly be a more impactful "impression" then the ads just running trough, without a skip, as most likely nobody is paying attention to them in the very first place.
Remember: on general-purpose devices, all code is mutable.
Most smartphones sold today wouldn't qualify as a general purpose computer.
In other words, you can use an Android phone on its own, unmodified, to program it to do arbitrary things. Yes it's awkward and yes you have to jump through some hoops to get it set up. Nevertheless, this fits my definition of a general-purpose computing device.
You could technically do the same on iOS. The only problem here is that Apple would never approve an app that gives a user this much control over their own device. It's not a technical issue, but rather an organizational one.
"Parsing music metadata is actually really fast, it's the process of getting a file handle from the android system thats the real bottleneck. MediaStore is a system-level daemon, so it doesn't have that restriction, but I do. This is why Vanilla and VLC take so long to load media, not because the metadata indexer is slow but because reading files is slow. Google prefers this as it furthers their quest to kill the filesystem, so there's nothing I can do about it."
Once they deny root to the user it's all a matter of degree not principle.
Nope, this will definitely come to pass. As long as there's munition left to be fired, or new one invented, the arms race will continue.
[0] https://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious-terr...
“Sooo… I guess we’ll need to up our air time by a third, huh?”
When John Wanamaker said what he said I think he was talking about print ads for department stores in an era before ad metrics, large scale market research, etc. It was probably true then to be fair, but that doesn't make it useful now, or applicable to all advertising. For example, if I used this quote when I was talking about Internet adverts I'd just be wrong. It's trivial to track the effectiveness of an online ad
I mainly watch streaming content with no ads. Whenever I do watch something over regular channel ( ex. my wife wanting to watch something thats not streamed ) the ads disgust me and the interruptions are super annoying, it just reminds me why i dont watch broadcast tv anymore and re-inforces my behavior.
i.e., Once advertisers could measure how effective their ads were, they were no longer willing to pay as much
For this research, the co-authors worked with TVision
Insights, a TV performance metrics company that
developed innovative technology to passively monitor
who’s in the room and whether they’re actually looking
at what’s on the TV screen,
while respecting viewer privacy.
"Research" like this makes me wonder how the subject of economics ever entered the halls of academe. While writing this I'm wondering if the Frankfurt school of thought or Chomsky might have explained this actually already.
It should be.. A 1/3 of ads played for TVision's audience plays to an empty room.
Something like Shazam, but for ads, and with on/off control over my TV.
If anything the numbers should be "better" for TV these days: As when I was a kid, ad breaks were toilet and toothbrush breaks and I barely watched through any of them. These days modern midrolls are designed to be too short for that, but just long enough to be bearable.
I don’t miss cable television commercials. But they provide a unique lens into how strange it is to be a person at all.
Newspapers typically get / got most of their revenue from ads, more than from subscription or selling papers.
An example I heard a few years ago (don't quote me on the actual numbers): the Economist makes about 10 dollars on ads for every issue they sell. Almost no one would opt to buy a version of the print Economist that costs 10 dollars more to avoid the ads.
In contrast, broadcast TV makes about 20 cents on one viewer watching for an hour. Quite a few people would be willing to pay 20 cents to skip ads for an hour.
In that sense of (hypothetical) willingness to pay, ads in print are more economically efficient than ads in broadcast TV.
What are these tools and how do they measure?
Ie I wonder if they are relying on smart tv metrics , or tracking volume/people changing channels.
If the commercials were of better quality (script, directing and so on), the problem would solve itself.
Netflix
Plex
Prime
Disney Plus
YouTube (I guess they have ads but not the same)
Mobile game ads on the other hand... Urgh.
Can you comprehend how ridiculous you sound?
a) there's some quality content on Netflix, Amazon, Disney. Even youtube has hidden gems, although you definitely have to dig or be in the know. If you choose to watch vacuous nonsense on n those platforms, that's your choice
b) and related is that the key word you left out there was "uninvited". I'm quite happy to watch vacuous nonsense when I choose. Sometimes that's what I'm in the mood for. It feels different when it's rammed down your throat
Basically, you're conflating two separate but often adjacent things - mainstream content and corporate advertising. The whole point of streaming is that you can have the first without having the second which is kind of unprecedented in recent entertainment history.
If your meta-point was to prove how cool you are because you eschew the mainstream then... congrats?
Paying to avoid ads and get more interesting programming seems like a perfectly valid flex. I'd probably do it more broadly if I could. Content costs money to produce. Someone has to pay for it somehow. And I pay less for streaming today than I paid for my cable TV subscription.
(and I seldom go back to anything, site, app or TV channel, that doesn't let me skip ads.)
Then again I'm not in the US and am not a football fan (which I suspect is one of the drivers behind the timing of this article), but I believe we now have, worldwide, two entire generations of people who mentally blank out any form of advertising they come across. It just doesn't register unless it's fun or goes viral, and even then people recognize it for the outright manipulation that it really is.
I can't wait for that bubble to burst.
If it does it will certainly have an affect on the media that's available for you to watch and/or require you to pay a lot more directly.
Maybe few times in my life I was remotely considering buying something because of an ad, while 99,99% of them make me switch channels, or mute the TV/radio until they end. I'm ad blind on social media, not to mention I use ad-blockers wherever I can.
To me it's like buying thin air, and how this market is able to get serious companies spent millions on it is beyond me.