My idea to get cooperation and buy-in across the streaming providers was to try and "nudge" customers to subscribe and bundle competing services by directly showing all programming that could be accessed in one interface. Ideally streaming and account management and signup would be done through this single clearing house. Perhaps an incentive if all three services were active.
Obviously would be fraught with issues, and I could never really see any cooperation like that working. but I liked the name...
Everything being VoD is a pretty nice feature though.
Streaming is oodles cheaper than owning traditional TV station.
So actual hardware would cost them like 1/4 of that.
With a cable DVR you can arbitrarily control the video stream. You never have to watch an ad if you don't want to. Amazon won't let you conveniently skip these ads.
Streaming was always going to be about losing that freedom. Cable companies weren't bold enough to take that away, or it never occurred to them.
The last time I had Spotify installed, it wouldn't even credit me with having heard an ad if I muted my speakers.
Mind you I was a from the go cord cutter, when I left my parents and spread my wings, I never once wanted cable. I had it through them and it was... fine. Certainly not worth the absurd prices it goes for and as such, I have never, ever had it. In general my interests are niche too so even OTA TV is just not interesting to me. I watch YouTube, my iTunes library, and a plex box for... other stuff. That's it.
And it just blew my mind, I'm doing some work in the hotel room and I want some background noise, so I flip on the TV and... ads. Ads ads ads ads ads. For every 30 minute block I would say it's 55/45 between content and ads. And endless parade of medications, medical devices, lawyers promising to get you more medicare money, shitty fast food, how to lose all the weight you gained from eating the shitty fast food.
And the repetition. Oh. My. Lord. Like I genuinely can't tell if this is just because I haven't watched TV to any extent since I was living with my parents during schooling, but I do not remember the mix of ads being so lean. Or maybe it's because they're running more of them, I don't know. But I swore over the course of a week long hotel stay I saw a particular ad for Wendy's at least a hundred fucking times.
What does still matter is whether the video stream tech gives you the freedom to seek/skip or not. Then the ads become more or less moot. Plex for local media gives you freedom, sure. My cable box does. Streaming will not.
But you are right eventually ads will get everywhere and even if you are willing to pay more it just means you are making enough that they can charge you even more.
The solution is to abandon any platform you can where you can't block ads.
That said, in this case it's relevant.