As Amazon becomes the latest platform to push an ad-supported tier, TV writers greet this retro model with frustration and, in some cases, disdain: “I thought 'Nine Perfect Strangers' with commercials was horrible,” says David E. Kelley of his Hulu show with breaks.
It’s guaranteed to be worse: TV episodes are completely structured around whether the creators expect ads, and where in the runtime the ad will be (so they can resolve or tease a plot point before them).
The addition of ads, or having more ad breaks than the original transmitter of a show had, will break the structure.
And then of course there’s the ‘Spotify question’: are these ads genuinely supporting a subscription, or are they there to annoy you into paying for one by disrupting the flow of an episode as much as possible?