Comment on HBO Max is removing features from my plan without reducing my price.

• LillyPip@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨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.

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  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨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.

    www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/7wxRbKq9Dj

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    • LillyPip@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨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.

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      • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        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.

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      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        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:

        …wikipedia.org/…/Cable_television_in_the_United_S…

        The majority of channels has commercials, the ones you paid extra for (like HBO) didn’t, they weren’t the majority and the one 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.

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• bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Your link literally states you’re wrong…

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  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨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.

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    • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨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.

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      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I didn’t move the goal post, most of the channels you got access to when subscribing to cable were the same channels you had access to without cable and they had ads, a minority of channels, starting in 72 with HBO, didn’t have them but in 77 the trend reversed.

        That’s 5 years without ads on a minority of channels you could watch and people speak like all cable was ad free and like that was the whole point of it. Well, no, the whole point was to get TV to people who didn’t have good reception and these people ignore the 24 years of cable TV that came before 1972 and the 46 years since 1977.

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