I didn't mind ads on TV when I was young...and as they were louder (as they expected you leave the room) I could tell when to race back from whatever chore or what have you I was doing.
But then after years of almost no TV watching, the ads had become too much. Those who had kept watching rather than going for years without TV as I had didn't realize it, at least acclimated to it. But for me it was like ads that were "now here's a break from our ads for the show you wanted to see." Sheesh.
While I don't think this was true of all, there was at least one show where I timed it, and the ads actually played longer than the TV (as in if the ads were cut out, the hour long show would be a half hour, or the movie with a half hour or more shaved off the viewing time).
I usually didn't mind cliffhangers as long as they were rare. Buffy the Vampire Slayer did this well. I was less happy, but generally tolerant, when say the X-Files or Star Trek: Next Generation pulled this off as a series finale (especially as it seemed to me that the continuation in the next season was a lot more half-ass).
On the other hand, the never ending bit to keep you watching with streaming does bother me, and I've learned to stop somewhere in the middle. (Thankfully, most will automatically restart me where I left off.)
It's gotten too crazy with finales as well, particularly bothersome on networks infamous for just never continuing a series. I realized recently that when the supposedly final season of Stranger Things comes out, I have no intention of watching it, despite loving that show. If I chance upon it, sure. But I'm not going to pay or go out of my way just to watch it. I'll be content with whatever I find on the wiki about it later. I think this is the first that I've got burned out not by the show simply refusing to end with some dignity, but because it's just too long a wait. In my gut, I just don't care. I'm not mad or anything, just uncaring. (But I'd have handled the wait better if it had some kind of ending point than a cliffhanger.)
And I currently have no cable or streaming service that I pay for, and it's entirely possible I never will again. I've lately been getting into books again. And I'm sure if I wanted, I could get into some role playing game group (with people my own age) quite easily since that's no longer a fringe hobby. I preferred those for various reasons I won't got into here.
Just saying that I think streaming services and cable take us for granted. And maybe there's enough people that they can afford to do that with (I do remember how I camped and hiked for days to make it back to town at dusk to see the glow of the TV coming out of nearly every home), but I'm not one of them.
On a side note, there used to be one official narrative (alternatives existed, a few popular that grew into major networks of today, but even they had to acknowledge the common point of reference back then, otherwise it was too much like a cult when trying to communicate with the rest of society). That has changed today, and while I once thought having many different viewpoints available would be good (with the bad), I've found people in general gravitate to their echo chambers (be it their preferred fables to pseudo-news) to exist in bubbles that destroy the common point of reference. At best, that makes it useless. Well, clearly not for some people, but I think society has become worse for it rather than better...and I didn't think it was that great to begin with.
