The people that moved to streaming to get away from commercials switched a long time ago. Others watched the streaming sotes that had commercials because it was free or aignificsntly cheaper than cable.
Of course being greedy companies means they want both the subscriptions and the ad revenue.
No commercials was a bonus for a bit, but I think most people actually went to streaming services because it was both cheaper than cable, and you could watch on demand instead of according to TV scheduling
I think this is a bug part of it.
Average person doesn’t care about the details if their convenience is satisfied. It’s why so many continue to use Facebook even after the Cambridge Analytica scandal (which is still in the courts), and exposure of their tracking pixels.
Convenience. That’s enough for most people. It’s why we traded our personal data for free email accounts with Google, etc.
Because plebs take it…
I know on Lemmy we like to flez that we don’t… But gen pop normie accepts them, no questions asked…
20ish years ago…
ELI5 How come paid cable TV channels are now running commercials? Is that not bad for business because most if not all people got it to avoid commercials?
Like pretty much anything, it’s because most people continue to pay for it despite the shittiness.
Same reason concert tickets cost so much.
The line always has to go up. If the company stops picking up new subscribers, then their profits stagnate. And that makes investors unhappy. So to avoid that, they start to jack up the price to keep the line going up. And if that isn’t enough, they then start throwing ads into the services.
The line must always go up.Demand and offer meet where they meet.
Because it worked with cable tv back in the day so it will work again if its allowed to. Stop giving companies your money as a general rule.
Do you know what else eventually happened with cable? People cutting it by the millions when there was finally another choice.
It’s interesting that my family went from wasting time siting in front of a big screen tv paying massively for cable channels we never used, to cutting the cable and only paying for 2-3 streaming services at a time
But it’s even more interesting we continued down this path so our down time is dominated by small screens and somewhat interactive media instead of passively watching. If I stop paying for streaming media, my teens wouldn’t notice. It would just be the people here who would notice, as I complain more about doom scrolling and reaching the end
Because they can. The objective of any company is to squeeze as much profit as they can. It’s more lucrative to offer tiered services where you have to pay extra for no advertisements so they do it. If they realize enough people are leaving because of it they will reverse it.
You actually have the answer in front of you.
Yes, people signed up for stabbing services, with their monthly fees, to get away from ads. So, the corporations start putting ads in the low tier, meaning you have to pay even more every month to start free from ads.
Didn’t forget: “good” for the business is “bad” for you. That’s pretty much baked into the very foundations of capitalism.
i want to unsubscribe from the stabbing service
Ok, that made my morning. I hate my phone
are you sure? 🔪
I go to bakery and buy bread. They have more money, i have more bread.
Good for bakery, good for me. I don’t understand what’s “bad” for me?
When they make the bread worse and raise prices to increase their profit margin. And show some ads to make extra profit. And start to pester you with more service tiers and subscriptions before they give you the bread because they’ll be able to scam some people into giving them another revenue stream…
So I have to imagine the bad part? Those things haven’t happened.
If the loss in revenue from turned-off consumers unsubscribing is less than the revenue gain from ads from people who just live with it, then it’s good for the business. That’s the world we live in now
I am one who can’t live with it. Ass are so brutal and why I never had cable as an adult. I was streaming out of the gate.
Saw an interesting… Ad I guess… on prime for a new show. I click it. 2 minutes of ads it says in the top right. I just immediately quit and switched to Netflix lol.
That’s what enshittification is. Make something good, draw people in, they make your service a part of their lives, and then you fuck them in the ass.
The best situation is giving money to a company that’s not shitty. The second best situation is piracy. The third best situation is letting yourself get fucked over. It’s really up to the companies whether or not we have the best situation. It’s up to all of us to have the basic dignity to not get screwed over by the worst option, and to choose the second one when they try.
That first paragraph, I’m stealing that quote.
They ran on cheap prices and no commercials to get people hooked. Now that they dominate the market, they raise the prices and include ads for increased revenue.
People are willing to pay for it. It’s that easy.
Oh my sweet summer child, let me tell you a tale of cable television…