Did that really happen though? VHS tapes had a plastic tab that could be removed to prevent recording. Any commercial VHS tape would not allow that. So that would only be happening if you recorded some movie and someone else used the same tape to record their show. Not really a VHS problem.
It was like buying a new slow cooker every time you need one. It's not that expensive, but it seems wasteful non-the-less.
Media was ephemeral back then.
If you wanted to watch "your show" you had to either have someone record it, or record it yourself. There were even VCRs that could be programmed to start recording at a certain point for a specific duration.
In all of humanity's many combinations of people, situations, and outcomes, yes, this has happened hundreds of thousands of times.
It's literally a meme that "oh! no, don't watch that one--that has our sex tape in the middle".
Although programming VCRs correctly required skill, because the user interfaces were so abysmal.
It was a meme that parents couldn't do it.
For younger readers: there was a single small display on the early programmable VCRs that could show a few digits, which needed to sequentially program the slot, channel, start time, and end time. Years later there were LCD screens on the remote, although they were still cryptic, and they didn't always synchronise correctly to the VCR, so results were unpredictable. Even later there were on-screen user interfaces (which were still extremely quirky). Reading a manual was definitely required at first.
Yes. All the freakin time. :)
People wouldn't bother with the tab, because they kept recording over stuff, dozens or 100s of times.