Theoretically, yes... but the reality is that most people just let algorithms decide which junk they're going to watch.
this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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The great thing is that you only have to watch junk if you want to watch junk. Even if you confine yourself to free videos on youtube, there's plenty of good stuff out there. If you curate your subscriptions and browse on the "subscribed" tab, rather than letting the algorithm feed you, you can control your viewing experience fully. You can even set up rss feeds for your subscribed channels if you want. Plus there are no shortage of ad- and sponsor-blocking options out there.
Ultimately, you get the online experience you work for. But it's certainly possible to curate a stream that is the equivalent or superior to the experience of the Discovery or History Channels back in their heyday, before their enshittification.
I agree and I do my best to watch meaningful content myself like documentaries and programs that actually show or teach me something. However, I sometimes drift into complete stupidity and watch lots of nonsense crap before I realize what I'm doing.
The scary part is that I see lots of young people I'm related to just spending entire days watching complete stupidity all the time.
Yeah, I'm guilty of the same.
Kinda.
We have the ability to choose our content, but more often than not we let the algorithms pick the junk for us and we just go with it.
Look at what the TikTok format has done to the internet, it's turning it into TV 2.0.
I know this is not an original thought. I saw the Technology Connections video.
and soon we will be watching the same ads again even with a paid subscription.
Not soon. Now. Prime, Hulu, Max, Peacock. They all do it.
All of those still have an dd free service option.
True, but I'm not paying over $100 a month for different services. I might as well have cable.
Why subscribe to more than one service per month? Its not like you can watch two shows at the same moment. Even $15/month for a single ad-free service is far cheaper than the $100+/month that a cable subscription costs. Further, when you want to cancel the streaming service, its less than 10 clicks where canceling cable is more than an hour on hold fighting with the "retention" department trying to prevent you from canceling, and then having to drag cable boxes to a storefront somewhere before the bills stop.
Even with all streaming's faults, is far FAR better than cable.
Its not like you can watch two shows at the same moment.
Do you have other family members in your house? Do you watch sports?
I agree that cable sucks and is expensive.
Do you have other family members in your house?
Yes, and yes we have shows on services that each other don't watch. When one of us gets to the end of the content on the streaming service we're subscribed to, we let the other know. Many times the other person too has watched the "important" stuff and are fine with dropping it immediately. Other times, one person is still watching "important" stuff and we may sub to an additional service early, but thats pretty rare. Most of the time its "okay no problem, let me know when you're finished with 'important' shows and we can drop it. We then look at the list of streaming services and decide together which one we want to sub to next. Rinse. Repeat.
Do you watch sports?
No.
There's no billboards on the high seas.
Depends on what you download and what you classify as ads.
No one can make you pay attention to them. When an ad break comes on, I get my book out and read until my show starts again.
Mute button
It's an old habit I had when all I watched was cable or satellite TV. Commercial comes on, hit the mute button, then do whatever ... read a book, stare at the wall, go to the toilet, count my toes, get a snack ... commercial is over, unmute.
Mute button, I've of the greatest inventions for any and all modern media formats.
My mother watching cable
Now instead of a few shitty things. The companies are making a shit ton less quality junk that's worse hoping one will become popular enough to justify the massive garbage they make.
The funny thing is, having full control of it doesn't fully make it better. You'd think that's objectively just an improvement, but there's peculiar value in channels curating what's shown and when.
Even moreso, it's was wonderful to know that the TV didn't keep a bookmark of what you've watched or how far you got, and if you miss something you miss it. You could just stop watching something, or miss several episodes and pick up on it, and that's fine - liberating in retrospect!
That's what you get for watching programmed TV of any kind. Kind of your fault for turning it on.