How did advertising substantially discourage people from engaging with television? There were times when a major portion of the country was all watching I Love Lucy at the same time.
I just don't see how you can logically defend that opinion.
Opinions don't have to be substantiated. And when they are they're typically recategorized as facts.
- Email is universally loathed and spam protection is standard, it's gotten so bad that the government had to make a law that forces all email solicitations to have an unsubscribe option and the name and address of the company sending the solicitation.
"Fleeing TV" -- indeed, a shift is being observed. However, the medium exists because of advertising. Also, the audience segment that time-shifts is not yet at a critical mass, though rising. And, live event TV (sports) is still doing exceptionally well because of advertising.
Email is another matter. Being a former advertising executive would you believe I never did an email campaign? (Probably not) Email spam (simultaneously posted advertising message) has always been more considered a path to malicious exploit than legitimate advertising.
I'm not denying that an increasing segment of users are becoming frustrated with ads, only stating advertising is the best method we have _now_ for monetizing content that costs some degree of expense to obtain and disseminate.
I serve on the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) mobile committee. As a newish member, we don't have much influence... but I can confirm lots of "limit testing" is on the way. It's hard to monetize mobile, and ad delivery/targeting firms are in a panic.