in Australia that was the whole selling point of foxtel when it launched. these days it has more ads than free to air TV and still costs like $60 a month for the basic package. most people only use it for sport
Comment on HBO Max is removing features from my plan without reducing my price.
LillyPip@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m old enough to remember when GBI was bes and their 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) I think 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 doing it?
Fuck them all . 🏴☠️
Marin_Rider@aussie.zone 7 months ago
LillyPip@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Great example , thanks! Yeah, same thing.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Most cable TV channels still had ads, the revenue generated from subscribers would never have been enough to cover otherwise.
LillyPip@lemmy.world 7 months ago
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.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
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, then some exclusive channels started appearing without commercials, but it wasn’t the norm.
LillyPip@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I mean, I’m not going off a belief, I actually lived this.
Where are you getting your information? I’d love a link.
Yes, the clear reception vs bunny ears was awesome, but 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.
bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Your link literally states you’re wrong…
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
No, because the majority of TV channels you got when getting cable weren’t cable exclusive, cable exclusive appeared in 1972 (24 years after the introduction of cable broadcasting) and in 1977 came the first cable exclusive channel with ads.
People saying “not having ads was the point of cable” are wrong since not having ads on all the cable exclusive channels was a thing for 5 years and only happened after cable already had a good fooothold in the market.
bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You’ve already changed the goal posts. Your initial claim was that most cable networks had ads, and now you’ve walked that entirely back to “well there existed one channel that had ads”
But also the original comment was they were old enough to remember it
And if you look at this timeline: computertechreviews.com/a-brief-history-of-cable-…
It lines up pretty well with their claims of when ads were during the viewing experience.
nephs@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Paying customers attention is so fucking valuable. People pay for something, maybe if we add ads they will pay for more things!
And most people are surprisingly not bothered by ads. So… Just criminalise the people that are, and there you go, infinite money making machine.
Sciaphobia@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I can think of a thing or two.