> TV has been like that since the advent of cable.

No, it hasn't. It has been somewhat since the much more recent introduction of “on demand” programming to cable, but that was basically just the introduction of streaming into cable in response to streaming services.

Sorry, I meant once cable rolled around, there's always been something to watch on TV. It may not have been interesting to normal people, but to an addict that's not going to matter. There was also the option of buying or renting a ton of movies or DVDs and watching them one after the other. This honestly reeks of a moral panic to me.

I think "on-demand" is a blessing. We are no longer tied to broadcaster schedules, have to remember to "program the DVR", writers don't have to write a cliffhanger every 12 minutes for an ad break.