Commercials in a World of Netflix

Netflix is a great thing. You can use Netflix to avoid pretty much any adult responsibility you want. Throughout the past year I have gone back and forth between watching basic television with my antenna and watching Netflix. I would get really annoyed when I switched from Netflix to TV because I would become so accustom to watching different movies and tv shows without commercials. Netflix is a service that people pay for, so I understand not having commercials in between shows or movies but what I don't fully understand is why channels that you have to pay for still have commercials. If Netflix can be successful with only subscription payments, do television channels need the income from advertisers and those paying for the channels?

My best guess as to why television channels still advertise, both on actual television plans and on their online services is because they can. For years commercials have been the norm, so why would that change now? Could television without commercials be the next big craze? It seems to me that even television is becoming a thing of the past mostly because I look around at all the college students I interact with every day and they have a Netflix subscription and if a show is on tv that they want to see they find it online somewhere. 

One of my favorite comedians is doing a show on Netflix and it sounds like the show will have a tv type format where a new episode is added every night on certain days. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out becuase right now a huge part of the appeal of Netflix is just binge watching shows. I am intriqued to see what happens in terms of entertainment in the future! Maybe it will be some strange combination of Netflix and cable!