There is a difference between a streaming platform and cable. Streaming platforms are on demand while cable is broadcast.
To have an ads/no ads option with cable, you need 2 distinct channels with different programming, as you need something fill what would be the ad breaks. With an on-demand platform, there is no fixed schedule, so you can insert ads at will without having to account for that.
So even if the market for no ads is small, it doesn't cost them much to provide that option, and they just have to price it above how much they get from ads to make a profit. Even the seldom used YouTube Premium is actually quite profitable for Google. Streaming platforms won't miss that opportunity.
Whenever a no ads tier is offered, a few ads always get shoved into the premium subscription eventually (see: spotify) because companies want to be able to reach the premium customers, who have more disposable income on average.
Lots of things didn't have ads on the past (basic cable TV for example). Today the model has changed to being expensive and still collect data/push ads. This isn't a cable vs streaming thing, it's a then vs now thing.
True. People forget television itself is barely 100 years old. Business models don't grow on trees, they need to be invented and they evolve along with the technology.
Advertising was with us for centuries, but it took until last few decades for it to evolve into a social cancer it is today.
There absolutely was. I was alive when it happened. It was a major selling point of the service. The only ads you'd ever see were promotions for shows that would later be shown on the same channel. Those ads were only shown after one show had ended and before the next show started. Even then, at first they were nothing but title cards showing static text. Sometimes there was also a countdown clock telling you when the next show would start.
After that came ads for what was going to shown on other channels as well, but again they'd never interrupt the programs you were watching and there zero ads for things like cars or laundry detergent.
Then slowly, a few channels started adding them in various formats until eventually there was little difference between ads shown on cable and ads on broadcast TV
> When cable first came on the scene, one of the most important points it made was that it was a non-commercial alternative to television,'' she says. ''Now advertisers are saying, 'Here's another place to think of on a costper-thousand basis.' ''
> A much-cited - and widely disputed - study by the Benton & Bowles advertising agency found that the public would accept advertising if it meant a reduction or a holding-of-the-line on subscription fees
> The bottom-line assessment of cable advertising is that it is too good to turn down. ''Who wants advertising on cable?'' Mr. Dann asks rhetorically. ''Anyone who wants to make money.''
You’re suffering from the Mandela affect. How was your cable ad free when it was rebroadcasting ABC, NBC, CBS, TBS (1976), and WGN that were all over the air with ads they were the first national “cable stations”.
MTV was also an early cable station and it launched in 1981 - with ads. USA, CNN, ESPN and Nick also came around in 1979-1980 - with ads from day one.
If retransmitted broadcast TVs had ads - the first content on cable - and the superstations, and the first pure cable channels, how could there have been a time without ads? There were never national basic cable stations that weren’t trying to sell ads from day one.
The article said people thought there wouldn’t be ads as cable got more popular - ie as cable channels popped up and cable became more than just a way to rebroadcast OTA TV.
Broadcast TV stations weren't considered "cable channels" even though they also came over the wire. Cable channels were those channels you got that your neighbor who didn't have cable couldn't see. Ad free cable channels were way before MTV. Even the national cable stations were late to the party.
At your age, if you never saw ad free cable you were either a late adopter or you just had a terrible local cable provider.
I'm really confused why this comment is downvoted to me. It's a pretty salient observation in my opinion. If it's because it's obvious to others, I think it bears repetition because it's an important distinction to the contrary.
That was 80s Reagan/conservative American. Those folks weren't as greedy as modern day companies and they cared about their product/experience, whereas nowadays caring about that is outsourced (see the Mad Men mess) and greed is king.
It's wild to long for the day of 'caring', 'sane', Reagan era corporate 'governance'.
Look up "corporate raiders" if you think business people weren't greedy in the 80s, or the dissolution of Ma Bell, that used to rent you your phone. In fact, the 80s era cable TV also started the box rental racket. You could not choose to buy, you had to rent.
Regan's politics are completely orthogonal to IP content today.
To have an ads/no ads option with cable, you need 2 distinct channels with different programming, as you need something fill what would be the ad breaks. With an on-demand platform, there is no fixed schedule, so you can insert ads at will without having to account for that.
So even if the market for no ads is small, it doesn't cost them much to provide that option, and they just have to price it above how much they get from ads to make a profit. Even the seldom used YouTube Premium is actually quite profitable for Google. Streaming platforms won't miss that opportunity.