Has this changed? When I tried YouTubeTV a couple of years ago, you could record things to the DVR, and sometimes not only would they not let you fast forward through the commercials, they replaced them with their own completely un-fast-forwardable commercials. Sometimes it would let you fast forward as normal though. This is what caused me to drop the subscription immediately.
Once that's done, I've never had an issue with fast-forward. The UI does differentiate between "recorded" and "on-demand" content.
What I have run into:
- Something I recorded is no longer available, I assume because some contract expired.
- Something that's immediately available as on-demand isn't scheduled to air "Live". I can still click the thing that says to record it, but it never airs and so never records. That's pretty rare, but it's happened.
There are 3 versions currently available to me for S46 E16: two DVR and one VOD. If I select either of the two DVR versions, I can skip commercials as expected. The VOD version forces me to watch commercials (also as expected, I guess).
See also:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-tv-will-force-you-to-wa...
You can use their cloud DVR to "record" something, and after that happens, you can fast forward through the commercials. Which is similar to what you would get with a old school cable and a real DVR.
I also hate commercials, and while you can find commercial free versions of some of the YouTube TV content, you can't find it for everything they air.
Streaming is so fragmented now, both in content and features, that you have to do quite a lot of research before buying.
Edit: The text of the email Roku is sending out: https://pastebin.com/C3cEE3qq