[Consultant32452]

I enjoy the standup specials. I remember when Comedy Central used to have stand up comedy. But I also remember when MTV was mostly music.

[Beldin]

Remark that that past evolution (of niche formats) does not bode well for the future of streaming video.

Case in point: I expect ads to arrive (within a decade) to streaming videos, much like they did for cable.

(Cable's main advantage in the early days was the lack of ads - or so I'm led to believe)

[cgriswald]

They’re already here. I even pay Hulu extra for no ads only to be greeted occasionally by a statement that due to licensing agreements a video has to have ads. And even the things that “don’t have ads” have ads for their other streaming videos, or try to cram ads in between auto plays.

[dreamcompiler]

True. In the early days of cable networks there were no ads. But slowly they came back when they realized people would tolerate them.

Now cable seems like mostly ads with a little bit of ghost hunting sprinkled in.