I think not being subjected to terrible, emotionally manipulative ads for 1/3 of the time you’re watching TV/Movies is the actual win for consumers in the streaming era.
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We were at an AirBNB with cable, and let our kid watch a bit of children's cable content.
My god, the ads. So many. So flashy. After every single one, she was convinced she needed whatever toy was being peddled.
Never again.
Cable has been "adverts with a bit of content" for a long time !
Every now and then I browse the OTA channels (>50 tunable channels in my area). It always impresses me how much I can channel surf and hit ad after ad after ad. Sometimes I can tune through 8 or 9 channels in a row without hitting any actual content.
I moved to the USA in 1989, and after 24 years in the UK, found trying to watch TV in the US totally unbearable. I thought it was because (a) the shows were so bad (b) the ads were terrible.
Netflix has made it clear to me that although many of the shows were awful, not all of them were, and that being able to see them without ads gave me a totally different appreciation for what (some) people were trying to do on TV over the last 3 decades.
Youtube will get there soon enough.
You know, you can pay them to remove the ads. Gives a bigger share to the video authors, too. (Yes, this won't skip sponsored content in the video.)
Between Ublock Origin and SponsorBlock for YouTube, YouTube is still pretty good these days.
It's a little thing, but given the choice of watching something on a streaming app versus watching the same show on the cable DVR and having to fast-forward through the commercials, even with smart-resume, it's kind of a no-brainer.
You still get ads in the streaming era, they just are served in different ways.