this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
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No, cable was commercial-free when it first came out just like streaming was. They repeated the ota signals for the broadcast stations which of course contained commercials, but extremely similarly to streaming they started out with a quality and ad-free pitch for their own networks and then wound up pivoting to screwing over the customer any way possible.
(As they continue to do today, btw.)
Some cable channels are still commercial free, all of them are since the DVR was invented 25 years ago. Watermarks suck, a DVR can't erase those. But nothing cable has done comes close to the fuckery we've gotten with surveillance and tracking, targeted ads, unskippable ads that is the present and future of streaming.
Cable providers have unskippable ads on their own "on demand" platforms. I'm sure they track everything you do on their apps and their (often required for no technical reason) cable boxes. The only reason they didn't participate more in surveillance capitalism is that they didn't have the technical chops. They tried -- and are still trying -- their best to strangle broadband with needless data caps and anticompetitive agreements with alternative ISPs.
Cable companies were also rabidly anti-dvr as anyone who had a tivo can attest to. I'm glad you like your cable provider or whatever, but cable companies suck in the US.