The history is quite different, the biggest difference being that there is (effectively) no geographical impediment to selling a streaming service, allowing for much more competition. Additionally, global scale allows budgets for much more content production per service/media company than used to be possible.
There's no need to be so unnecessarily condescending. Customers are used to the ad-free model and will be unlikely to accept a return to the 1/3 ads 2/3 content model of cable without significant customer attrition, which streaming services can ill afford in the current competitive landscape.
What competitive landscape? They're only competing with piracy. Movies and TV shows are mostly non-substitutable, so you almost always have a choice only between a) whichever streaming platform has an exclusive deal on streaming a given show, b) buying physical disks, and c) piracy.
Streaming services are competing with each other, even more aggressively when Disney+ appears on the scene and takes half of Netflix's content. The streaming service with no ads is going to win over the streaming service that has cable-level of ads, unless the show is so good to overwhelm that.