I am well aware of the fact that HBO Max is the only way that you can pay for standalone HBO content. Again do you think that after 42 years that HBO will not allow you to pay for ad free content? Has there ever been a premium channel that was ad free that went ad only?

No basic cable was never ad free.

> Again do you think that after 42 years that HBO will not allow you to pay for ad free content?

maybe, although I'm thinking more that WarnerMedia might have a say in it as HBOMax is a combination of HBO and Warner Bros, and at some point I might expect numbers cruncher at WarnerMedia come up with argument.

How I expect ads to arrive (streaming media industry wide, not in any particular order) -

1. Maybe changes to how product placement work - extra edits for placing in products. Think of it as an impromptu streaming "Director's cut" for putting in a few cute but nonessential scenes with product placement in them.

2. Some special trailers, for example Coming attraction hero trailer at top of page autoplays like Netflix autoplays, maybe can't turn off but ok, it lasts for 5 seconds at first, slowly gets pushed up to 10.

3. Netflix is already rolling out an ad supported tier next year for its original movies, will lose some people but I suppose it will work out in the end and the industry will follow with however they do the ads because every company will say see how much money Netflix made!

I mean my theory is that companies have no morals and capitalism means always having to find new ways to increase profits and the future is uncertain but there are trends pointing to companies obviously wanting to add Advertising layers in streaming services. So basically the pessimistic view when applied to "Will streaming services start pushing advertising?"

Your theory seems to be just that HBO wouldn't do that - because they didn't in another industry (Cable).

HBO is definitely going to have an optional ad tier.

And BTW, I didn’t even realize how old HBO was. It came online as a premium channel in 1972.

HBO has been owned by Warner since the merger between Warner and TimeLife decades ago.

>HBO is definitely going to have an optional ad tier

ok well then it seems we're in agreement, no one will have an obligatory ad experience they will just have different levels of allowing you to pay to opt out.