> If you are watching any kind of streaming video with an account number, your viewing habits are being consumed.

This is the precise reason why I don't use streaming services.

The sentence you quoted was the set up for the next sentence. The implication there was meant more for the less obvious cable subscribers. Most subscribers are unaware that they've been tracked ever since they day they switched to a digital stream. I've heard comments like yours while explaining why they keep their cable. Of course streaming services track your viewing habits. That's how they can do "Recommended for you" sections.

Ah, I see. In my mind, cable is a form of streaming service -- so I didn't differentiate between the two.

Interesting that you think of cable that way. What makes it a streaming service to you? Because it's IP based? Cable started as a way to deliver OTA broadcasts to people that could not receive the broadcast (typically due to terrain issues). That then grew into channels that did not actually have an OTA broadcast. Maybe it's a generational thing?

Not sure if its a generational thing or not. I'm a graybeard, if that matters, and I remember when cable TV was a brand new technology.

I think of it as streaming just because that's what it looks like. I never put any real thought into it. I didn't even realize that I thought of it that way until these comments.

My conception of this might be related to the notion of "streaming" also being a pretty old one to me. I was working on such software years before streaming services were a thing, around 1990.

I see your 1990 working on streaming and mention that cable started in the late 1940s.

Just a shot in the dark, were you working on MPEG delivery formats?

No, I wasn't. This work predated MPEG-1 by a couple of years, too.

The tech to do this may be here, but the customers are not. Ad free streaming early adopters where techies. Those people are going to willingly eat this shit sandwich and evangelize it to others.

I think you might be seeing the transition of smart TVs and streaming services from the early mainstream to the late mainstream. (I'm currently reading the book Crossing the Chasm.)

Certainly there is a market for someone who will buy a cheap smart TV, enter their Wi-Fi password, and just watch whatever random free ad-supported streaming services are on it. (Edit: Such a consumer won't even bother creating accounts on these services.)

But it's a huge mistake to assume that ads are coming back for everyone. One of the major draws of subscription streaming TV is the lack of ads. It's clear that this is a major difference between the early mainstream consumers of smart TVs with streaming services, and the later consumers who may be a bit more price conscious.

I think it's also a big mistake to assume that cheaper, ad-supported subscriptions, are a long-term trend. It ignores one of the reasons why streaming services became popular to begin with.

I think the industry is trying to answer the problem of "I don't want another subscription," but they are ignoring the other problem of: "There's more content than I can watch." Clearly, trying to convince someone to watch advertisements does not solve that problem.

(Edit: Why? If there is too much for me to watch, you won't convince me to subscribe to your service if it requires me to watch things that I don't want to watch in order to get a lower price.)

Edit2: I personally think the way to solve "I don't want another subscription" isn't cheaper, ad-supported subscriptions. I think it's copyright reform. Why should Disney's entire back catalogue only be available on Disney+? I certainly can understand limited exclusivity for new content; but after a year or two, there should be a statutory licensing fee structure that allows any streaming service to carry any content. We (in the US) have a similar structure for broadcast radio.