For those of us old enough to remember television, cable TV also started out as a premium experience that you pay for, that did not have ads.
Fast foward to the present, and cable TV is nothing but ads, you are the product, and you get to pay $XYZ/month for the privilege of being advertised to.
It's just a matter of time until Apple will be the cable TV of tech.
Just because you pay, or even pay a premium doesn't mean you aren't the product. When quarterly growth expected by shareholders cannot be met by getting new users, it will be met by squeezing existing ones.
Why does this false meme keep coming up? Basic cable was never a premium experience. Cable was first introduced to bring network TV - with ads - to areas that couldn’t get over the air reception,
The only stations that were add free were the same premium channels that you have today like HBO.
Some of the earliest cable “superstations” were just rebroadcast of local channels with ads like TBS and WGzn.
In India, regulations stated that ads on cable TV pay-to-view were supposed to be limited / less than Free-to-Air channels. But it wasn't much different ...
The above was absolutely true in my market (Australia). The GP didn't appear to specify a country, so I'm unsure why you're trying to invalidate their experience.
I think the same will first happen to Netflix, but yeah if ios drops the premium experience then Apple will find that they will have to compete with all the other Android manufacturers.
It is already a pain point for apps, because they tend to assume that it is fine to make the same shitty app for both platforms. Apple really should be way more strict with the quality of apps they approve.
Fast foward to the present, and cable TV is nothing but ads, you are the product, and you get to pay $XYZ/month for the privilege of being advertised to.
It's just a matter of time until Apple will be the cable TV of tech.
Just because you pay, or even pay a premium doesn't mean you aren't the product. When quarterly growth expected by shareholders cannot be met by getting new users, it will be met by squeezing existing ones.