The terminology changed recently, I don't remember a memo going out. But I don't consider something that has commercials "free" to watch. I'm not trying to be churlish; I just recognize that I'm paying with something. And they know I'm paying with it too, which is why they have the commercials there. You used to be able to buy most content online with this currency - attention - but it's depreciated over time, to the point where you now pay a service to show you ads.
So, if you are thirteen, it's entirely probable that you have never watched what they now call "Linear TV" and what we might understand to be Television. Maybe you watched discs from Netflix early on and transitioned into streaming along with the service itself. Commercials on YouTube, or Twitch, sure. You know about those. They're creatures of that environment. But seeing it come up on a television was… new, for them. It hadn't happened before. What a strange, incredible little slice of time that was.
I used to say it just to be a contrarian jagweed, I didn't really believe this is how it would go, because it would be fucking nuts. But we definitely reinvented a shitty, more expensive form of cable. Well, we didn't - you and I. Maybe you did, I guess. If that's the case, please stop doing it! Don't do it anymore.
Seriously, though. It's been crazy finding out just how much money "streamers" have been willing to stuff into a furnace to… Just to… what, exactly? Show us they can't be trusted to make or distribute culture?
(CW)TB out.
