There's a lot of bullshit that came with a large-scale adoption of the television streamer model. Writers and actors are screwed over by pitiful residuals (and shows cut off after 3 seasons to avoid paying proper residuals) and tiny writers rooms and a general lack of regulation.
The general viewing audience is screwed over by 8 episode seasons that come out every 2 years and get cancelled after 3 seasons. We used to get 22 episode shows that came out like clock work every September. If they were popular they could last years and years. We used to have fun filler episodes and room for character and relationship development. Shows were given room to breath and grow and find their footing.
But another aspect that I dont see people talking about as much is: commercial breaks.
TV shows made for cable used to bake commercial breaks naturally into the episode. There would be a natural pause or a dramatic reveal, the camera lingering on a shocked face before we cut to commercial.
It was understood that there would be so many commercial breaks each episode, so episodes were written with this in mind.
And when the streamer model was adopted, one of the big selling points was "No Commercials!" Which was great at the time. Except years later, it turns out they needed those Commercials. The Commercials allowed networks to stay profitable, which in turn kept the shows going.
And without those, the streamers never figured out to how make a profit (which brings us back to shite residuals and cancelled shows and skeleton staff and a growth model that prioritizes constant new content to bring in new subscribers with costs that keep going up and up and up).
So now, more and more streamers are bringing commercials back (unless you want to pay EVEN MORE to stop them).
EXCEPT with shows that were made for streaming, those baked in commercial breaks are NO LONGER THERE. So instead of a natural pause or break in the action leading to a commercial, we now have them popping up randomly.
Characters are mid-sentence and BOOM theres an ad. Dramatic confessions, romantic get-togethers, gripping action, doesn't matter! Boom, theres an ad right in the middle!
And of all the things mentioned, it's not like this one is the BIGGEST deal, but it is kind of annoying. And it's kind of annoying on top of everything else. It's just one more way I am constantly reminded of how much we lost with the stupid disruptor streamer model.
Everyone was sick of cable, so we turned to streaming. It was better for a while, and cheaper, so of course we did! That's how disruptors get you.
And now that it's become the norm, we're fucked.
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