I'm pretty sure the networks sued over DVRs but they lost because they had already lost against VCRs in the 1980s (skipping ads is just a form of time-shifting).

Yep, that's true. The difference now is that streaming services have attempted to make it a crime to record the streams you get from them by embedding DRM in the connections between the streaming device and the screen you watch it on. This is the primary reason for the HDMI standard. Combined with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, it's considered illegal to decode that video stream and record it with e.g. a screen capture device, even if it's solely for personal use.

So now if you want ad-free, you either pay extra in perpetuity for just that one feature , or you break the law. It's no wonder that piracy is back in such a big way.

And then from the jaws of that victory we snatched defeat.