Betty by Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen for January 24, 2024

I remember that. One of the things we liked best about those services was NO COMMERCIALS! Too bad that’s no longer the case. I hate commercials and I think that other than restaurant commercials I have never ever bought anything due to seeing some dumb commercial for it.

Advertising has molded us into the monsters that we are.

Just remember, they still provide you with add-free ads.

They all started doing original content and had to bring in revenue to produce their horrible content. And the paying consumers blindly submit.

Plus they are releasing episodes weekly instead of a whole series at once. Commercials and weekly shows, how much more like regular TV can they become?

Now they are using the threat of commercials to force us to pay more. They get their money from the advertisers AND from the subscribers who do not want the commercials.

The same thing happened with FM radio. When I was young it was a joy to listen to as it was music centric as opposed to AM radio with was all about DJ’s screaming at you, talk show opinionators screaming at you and Madison Avenue advertisers screaming at you. In contrast on FM radio the DJs would smoothly transition you into new music, the required ads and most notably no one screaming their opinions at you. Many of the DJs would even give you a head’s up as to when they would play an album like The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety so you could start your recorder. Okay, that was technically piracy, but it was appreciated. Today there is almost no difference between the two except how far you can drive away from the signal source before losing it or whether or not a bridge or a building will block reception. And don’t even get me started on when and how the music died at MTV. My point is that maybe too often money drives change and not always in a good way. And yes, I still have an aerial TV antenna, just because.

The same thing with FM radio. It was supposed to be commercial free, but within a couple of years that was out the window. Rising costs necessitated ads. YouTube is the WORST. Overall, there is as much ad time as video time and it interrupts the video constantly. THEN…they say "If you want “no ads”, sign up for a premium account. What a rip off. BUT..download the video and there are no ads. Download the video, watch it, then delete the file.

Get a Kodi box and Unblockr. Problem solved.

For many years people happily paid a lot of money for cable tv even though they knew it contained commercials. When I paid for cable it cost me almost $200. I dont think Im going to complain about $20 or so a month for something that doesnt have commercials. Heck, people pay $15 a month to get full access to a game that they already paid for.

I always wondered why I have to pay, and they get others to pay for commercials. Sounds like greed to me, I’ll pass.

the nickel and dimeing of viewers.

Isn’t that the same thing cable TV did?

Full service Netflix does NOT have ads.

Betty is channeling Ed McMahon?

One thing everyone seems to forget is that streaming provides (literally) hundreds of shows to watch – new and old movies, shows, foreign films and shows – something your basic over the air stations barely do. In San Diego there are 7 over the air stations, 4 nationals and 3 locals. If I had to rely on those I’d be unhappy. My streaming services (which incidentally cost me less than cable) provide a wealth of shows. Last night, for example, I watched two old Agatha Christie movies, have seen the remarkable “Julia” shows about Julia Childs, a delightful series from the UK about dogs, and looking forward to the next season of House of Dragons. So much variety…

I’m paying for regular cable TV but hope to change that really soon because any of the streaming services are cheaper than my cable bill commercials and all!

I think we are forgetting forty years of cable tv payments but whatever.