I think people forgot how bad it was. It was much more fragmented before but instead of services it was fragmented by time. Sure you have access to Seinfeld, but you can watch one or two Seinfelds a night at 8pm and 11pm.

I also remember base cable without any movies was around $60 or something and with some movie channels is >$100. And that's not inflation adjusted. You can easily get 3 or 4 of the top services for $100 today.

Finally claiming there are more ads on these services is a joke. There was ~20m for every 30m of programming, meaning 1/3 of the time you're watching commercials. And not just any commercials, the same commercials over and over. There was even a case of shows being sped up on cable to show more commercials.

I get it, everyone wants everything seamlessly and for next to nothing, but claiming that 90s cable was even comparable is absurd.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/how-networks-spee...

Senfeld aired on NBC, a public network. It's tightly integrated into the plot of the show.