at their peak, the auto skip didn't even exist.. just the manually-activated 30-sec skip that you had to enable yourself like a cheat code in a video game.

replaytv got sued out of existence due to the same basic functionality. dish's hopper still exists but i think they made a deal with the networks (we won't sue you if you delay the feature for a number of hours).

the networks will sue as soon as tivo makes it a specific line item on a bill for the specific feature of automatically skipping commercial breaks. and that's on top of subscribers leaving due to the rug pull.. but where tf they gonna go? alternatives kinda suck and are not as easy to set up or use.

The cause is capitalism. Every company is driven by an insatiable profit motive to endlessly grow, and extract as much value from consumers and employees as possible, like a cancer.

And their response appears to be "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

I mean, it's been 20 years since GPLv3 came out.

That's wild.