this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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963
Amazon Prime Video will start showing ads on January 29th unless you pay extra for ad-free (www.theverge.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So for those who don’t know, this happened with cable back in the day. No ads was part of the pitch, then they were slowly introduced, the appeal of the product fell, and, at least in my circles, fewer held on to the product over time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

that’s patently untrue.

the first cable stations were OTA (network) stations from major cities being served to rural areas. those had ads.
the first cable-specific channel was TBS which was just a converted Atlanta NBC channel that also had ads.
as basic cable grew, new channels launched with ads.

Premium channels like HBO launched in the 70s without ads but afaik those channels are still ad-free except self-promotion between shows.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well, not everyone lives in the US or has the same timeline or window of experience. I should have made the relativism of my statement more clear, though it was touched on briefly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think my “window of experience” has any impact on the objective reality that cable had ads from square 1.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Unless for some countries the cable experience didn’t have ads from square one, then people in those countries have a different reality.

But globally, yes, you’re point is well made and I didn’t know about it (thanks!), and is arguably much more relevant if that timeline and jurisdiction/territory match that of the corporations which currently run the streaming world, which is very much the case by my count.