(The "there's always more [content out there]" component you mention - something I am very familiar with as someone with ADHD :X - folds nicely into the mesmerism/relive component described above.)
Where I learned about this recently: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/whats-paw-pa...
Linked from: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/how-toys-... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22259025 (9 days ago)
Or something along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Machines
Dunno.. I tend to watch video with my 3.5 year old rather than leaving him to watch video while I go do something else. We only watch videos occasionally (maybe 3 hours/week on average), and don’t really end up with meltdowns when we stop. But that method doesn’t help if the goal was to get some time alone as a parent.
We try doing that with 20 min of Paw Patrol and it's impossible. Give a finger, they take an arm. It's impossible to regulate the quantity.
No matter how many different options they have available to play or what promises you try to make before hand, it ALWAYS ends in a total meltdown. We get 20 min of peace, followed by 40 min of hysteria.
Before streaming media (YT, Netflix) we could watch something say Sunday 6PM or Saturday 7AM, and that was it. Now everything's on demand and they know perfectly well there's always more as long parents say ok.
The only solution is to stop. After a few days of no TV, they stop asking and happily draw, leaf through books, build stuff. But nothing says "peace" like a kid watching TV.