Max would be in my cancellation list if it wasn’t because I get it for free because my cable provider from 2013 is too incompetent to update their database with the fact that I haven’t owned that condo since 2015. Netflix is hanging on by a thread.
I currently pay for Paramount+ (great value) and Dropout (support indie creators). Prime doesn’t count because I pay for it for the shipping, but once they start with ads, I’ll stop watching it.
We’re back to that place where the hassle of piracy is worth it again. The problem for studios is that technology has come a long way since the last time people had to think about “cord cutting” through piracy, and it’s just too easy to do it now. The second golden age of television is coming to an end.
Cancel it, problem solved.
Shrinkflation, hitting online world too.
That’s why I pirate. Jellyfin FTW.
I was a long time pirate back in the day, and thinking of sailing once again. However all my old booty spots are gone. What is Jellyfin?
A great UI to stream your movie files from your TV. A bit like Plex, but open source.
I’m old enough to remember when HBO’s entire point was you paid for cable so you wouldn’t have ads. That was their business model.
Then sometime in the late 80s or early 90s (I dunno, that decade’s kind of a blur) they started sneaking ads in between shows, but not in the middle of shows. But you were paying a higher price, with a few ads. Then they started showing ads to everyone, and still making you pay. I’m still salty about that.
This was always going to happen. They’ll compound paying PLUS ads, and you’ll like it, because what choice do you have if all services are doing it?
Fuck them all . 🏴☠️
e: massively borked that first sentence
Most cable TV channels still had ads, the revenue generated from subscribers would never have been enough to cover otherwise.
Edit: thanks for the downvotes, I’m right, they’re wrong, deal with it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/7wxRbKq9Dj
In the early days they didn’t; that was the whole point of them. You paid a subscription specifically not to have ads like free broadcast television did.
It only lasted like a decade, but it was their whole selling point.
e: keep in mind, too, that broadcast tv at the time was where all the good content was. HBO only showed movies that had already been in theatres (thus the name Home Box Office) and Showtime’s hook was soft-core porn. (‘Do your parents have Showtime?’ was sleepover code for ‘can we watch kinda-porn after the ‘rents have gone to sleep?’) There wasn’t the dearth of original shows/movies we have now. They weren’t studios back then.
e2: sorry for multiple edits, but also bear in mind that when HBO first came out, people were watching their content on televisions like this, which was so inferior to movie theatres that ‘it’s in your home advertising free!’ was basically their whole selling point at first.
That’s a false belief that keeps getting spread, cable TV started as the same channels with clear reception instead of having to rely on antennas, so no people didn’t pay not to have ads, they paid to be able to have a good reception of the same channels then had access to for free with bad reception, then some exclusive channels started appearing without commercials, but it wasn’t the norm.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/7wxRbKq9Dj
And it’s funny that you’re talking about “the early days” since it started in 1948 and I’m willing to bet that you weren’t born.
I mean, I’m not going off a belief, I actually lived this.
Yes, the clear reception vs bunny ears was awesome, but that was also limited on televisions like this, and I’m talking specifically about the content.
My family were always early adopters of technology (I started gaming in ‘79 with both the Intellivision and Atari – Intellivision was far superior). We had HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime as soon as they were available.
I’m talking about the late 70s and early 80s when they were commercially available to the masses and the cable wars began.
The late 70s were absolutely the early days of commercial cable tv.
The late 70s were absolutely the early days of commercial cable tv.I provided a source with more sources, no it wasn’t.
Need more? There:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States
First phrase:
Cable television first became available in the United States in 1948.The majority of channels has commercials, the ones you paid extra for (like HBO) didn’t, they weren’t the majority and the point of paying for cable wasn’t too remove ads, you still had them on the majority of the channels because they were the same as what you got with antennas.
You’re not the only one who lived it buddy, you just don’t remember it properly.
How old are you?
I don’t need links to tell me what this was like when I vividly remember.
Yea, cable television first became available in 1948. Regular middle class families did not have cable television for a long time after that.
Mobile phone service was available in 1959. Guess how many people had it? A good friend of my family had a car phone in the mid 70s. Guess how common that was?
You can’t go by invention dates on stuff like this. You’ll be amazed at how long some things take to gain market acceptance.
So far I’m the only one providing sources, an anecdote of when you were a kid isn’t reliable.
The majority of channels had ads because, again, they were just the same channels as without cable. Cable exclusive channels weren’t a thing before 1970 (when there’s was 10m subscribers already) and ads on a cable exclusive channel first started in 1977 with nearly all of them having ads in the in the 80s.
7 years of commercial free cable exclusive channels that were a minority of channels available at the time. No, people weren’t paying not to see adverts and no it wasn’t the point of cable TV like you said, the point of creating cable TV was to allow people to reliably watch TV by broadcasting the signal in a way that wasn’t affected by all sorts of elements out of the control of the broadcasters.
I mean, I’m not going off a belief, I actually lived this.
Yes, the clear reception vs bunny ears was awesome, but that was also limited on televisions like this, and I’m talking specifically about the content.
I’m talking about the late 70s and early 80s when they were commercially available to the masses and the cable wars began.
The late 70s were absolutely the early days of commercial cable tv.
This is my recollection as well; I was a young adult at the time.
Cable was ABSOLUTELY supposed to be ad-free. Ad-free, and local access so that anyone could have their own show. That was the tradeoff to get people away from the big three (ABC, CBS, NBC) at the time. There were literally no ads.
But it didn’t last long at all. Local stayed ad-free for much longer; anything national came with ads embedded. Even the very first day of MTV had ads.
And before anyone screeches at me about what link said what, forget it. I’m not interested in reading text about how the 60s and 70s were supposed to have taken place written by people don’t even know what it means to unplug or hang up a phone, or why anyone would even do that, or what green stamps were, or what happens when you lie on the floor with your head between two speakers listening to Pink Floyd, lol.
LillyPip is factually correct. You should be listening to them instead of trying to retcon history for them.
HBO MIN
HBO MID at most
