Yes, but not always. There was a time when it was a new thing, and, when so, it was much argued.
> But my point is actually a bit different. Weren't VCRs a good thing? Isn't it a bad thing that it is so much harder now to record internet TV than it was to record broadcast and cable TV in the 1980s-2000s?
Yes, they were! Yes, it is! But my point wasn't to disagree with you on either of these points, just to observe that it's not that the content owners who went along with previous innovations are suddenly balking at this. Rather, my invocation of even long settled questions like analog recording was meant to point to the fact that content owners have always argued against use of their material that they didn't like, which was any use of their material that they didn't completely control and directly profit from.
I am reminded of the backlash against player pianos, and of Sousa's "The Menace of Mechanical Music." He wasn't wrong of course, though the cat had been out of the bag since the advent of orchestrions, crank organs, and other technology dating back to the 18th century and probably earlier.
Analog seems pretty well settled in the US for the past ~40 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive....
But my point is actually a bit different. Weren't VCRs a good thing? Isn't it a bad thing that it is so much harder now to record internet TV than it was to record broadcast and cable TV in the 1980s-2000s?