We mostly watch news and sports in my house. So unfortunately, live TV. Occasionally we watch other things. I mute the commercials and browse my phone when they're on.
But I would love a TV that is smart enough to auto hide & mute every kind of ad. Even little logos on the athletes' uniforms. Hide the ads on the pitcher's mound. Hide the billboards and signs in the stadium. Show some cool little generic animation, music video, or slide show during commercial breaks. Hide the damned popup window ads and scrolling ads that some channels do. Remove product placements from movies and shows. Basically make all ads completely vanish.
I used to be in a shitty local band (well a couple of them) and we would sometimes go to WH at 2 or 3 in the morning. I saw some interesting people for sure. And I have been there many times at all hours of the day. I've never seen anything remotely like the internet horror stories. Obviously there have been fights and shootings and what not at Waffle Houses, but those happen at plenty of other places, too. I think the "shit show rep" that it has just comes from bullshit artists on reddit trying to sound edgy or funny. I saw a lot more weirdness on the handful of times I've ridden a NY subway.