[josefresco]

There are commercials on all of the "cable replacement" steaming services. I use YouTube TV and it's worse than cable. They prevent me from watching my DVR content for certain content, instead forcing me to watch the "on demand" version with unskippable ads. Comcast/Xfinity DVR never did that. The only real benefit is that it's slightly cheaper and supports multiple "profiles".

[nordsieck]

> There are commercials on all of the "cable replacement" steaming services.

No commercials on Netflix.

I"m sure they do product placement and other marketing stuff, though.

[sib]

Netflix is not a "cable replacement" streaming service. Those services are the so-called VMVPDs such as PS Vue, DirecTV Now, SlingTV, YouTube TV, etc. The key characteristic of these services that differentiates them from Netflix is that they have some coverage of live TV, local TV, and/or sports.

[Broken_Hippo]

Satellite service has, in the past, failed at local TV - but most folks view that as a cable replacement.

And like others have said, people are using Netflix to replace cable - and as such, it is a cable replacement. It isn't difficult to get some live news from major services (BBC, for example) or get some local news from local sources. I don't know much about sports as I've never really watched them - but I know in some places, you need a fairly special cable package to have good access and that sometimes, a disagreement between the networks and the cable company will keep them from you. Using sports as a marker seems pretty flimsy.

[nordsieck]

> Netflix is not a "cable replacement" streaming service.

Except that some people are replacing their cable with Netflix. So it is, in fact, a "cable replacement" for those people.

[cwkoss]

Perhaps the cable industry doesn't define them as so, but Netflix is absolutely is a cable replacement for many consumers.

[sib]

Many people cancel cable and don't subscribe to anything, and decide to read books instead, but we wouldn't call "nothing" or "reading books" a "cable replacement service"...

From the GP's comment, it's clear that the reference was to actual "cable replacement services."

[josefresco]

The parent comment is about "streaming services" not just Netflix.

[ShamelessC]

Yeah and you said "all" of them have ads. Netflix doesn't, so clearly they don't all have ads.

[josefresco]

All of the "cable replacement" streaming services" - I should have been more clear.

[vel0city]

DirecTV did this on their cable boxes for a few channels. I would schedule a show to record, and it would record the show during the air time to the hard drive. While the show was playing it would play off the hard drive. When the show cut to an ad break, the cable box would connect to the internet to show an unskippable ad.

I'll admit this was only on a few networks and maybe only certain programs, but overall it was a pretty poor experience.