What did Amazon prove that newspapers and cable tv haven’t demonstrated for ages?

I had the same thought. I think that it was slightly different in the age of paper publications and cable though because there was no alternatives. Now, everyone runs their own streaming service, and until all of them decide to also run ads (a la the cable company of yore), theres still some shred of consumer choice. The aggressive nature of exclusive content and licensing puts a lot of leverage on that perceived choice though, and content/service bundling (prime) do as well, which i figure factors in to peoples acceptance of ads on prime video.

Even that aside, it may just be consumers not caring or wvwn liking ads. I have a friend who refuses to even consider ad blocking because he claims to enjoy ads (bizarre to me, but he did major in digital marketing and has expressed his enjoyment of it).

I don’t mind the terrible ads. I wish they were all like that because I don’t like being advertised to. Make them all useless and easily dismissed please.

I don’t need any help spending my money and I don’t appreciate all the psychological influence tactics being weaponized against me in every moment of my existence to get some inane brand buried in my subconscious.

I really do think the inadvertent earnestness of the shittiest ads amidst all the streamlined trickery in our current media ecosystem wrought with distrust does work best to win over consumers

Also decades of basic cable. And "the NYTimes" here is really short for "much of the whole history of print newspapers and magazines".

Point taken.

Although the current online norm is to remove all advertising, afaict making NYTimes & Amazon stick out (like sore thumbs).

Serving ads has been the business model of every newspaper for 100+ years. The difference is that the ads today can be used to spy on you. When I cancelled my NYT subscription I added a note about this.