Probably obvious to most of you, bit of an "ohhh" moment for me

Commercial TV shows, that enshittification predates its own name. The [lack of] quality is fine-tuned, so your typical Joe is barely willing to watch it - otherwise, the commercial TV competes with more profitable subscription services of the same corpo.

It feels kind of weird, even. I've been avoiding TV since I was fourteen; now I'm almost forty, I'm seeing more and more people doing the same. Even my old mum. (Setting up a LAN so I can download her favourites and she can watch them from the TV was great.)

They want a good show to attract as many viewers as possible. To then watch the commercials.

In 2004, a french TV executive famously publicly said he was in the business of selling "available brain time" to advertisers.

Same with youtube and all ad based social media / entertainment.

If the service is free then you are the product.