While there’s a bit of a focus here on what it’d “mean” for Apple to do this … more broadly, which streaming services don’t have ads by now? Prime and Netflix do, I know that much.
Basically it seems the industry has done exactly what cable did IIRC … once they’ve got you by the balls they’ll squeeze you as dry as they can.
Apart from finding a local hardcopy rental shop (I have and am trying to use it as much as possible), or you know, just not watching, “reverting” back to piracy is likely the only way to react here.
The problem is mathematics.
Capitalism requires that profits always increase, but we live on a finite planet, with a finite amount of land, a finite amount of resources, and a finite number of humans… always, eventually, the ONLY option to continue this dichotomy is to squeeze your existing customer base, and extract as much value from them as possible (by devaluing your product). Unfortunately customers do not hold unlimited value, so the house of cards will collapse one way or the other.
Clearly, the only solution is to wage a war on mathematics.
