Want to See Why You Can’t Get HBO or Showtime Without Paying for Cable? Watch This Ad.

“Hey, stupid TV companies!” the Internet says, over and over. “Stop making us sign up for pay TV to see your shows!” “Not gonna happen,” comes the response from the TV guys, over and over. “Not anytime soon, at least.”

That’s particularly true for premium pay channels like HBO and Showtime, which make almost all their money from subscription sales, and rely heavily on pay-TV providers to handle their marketing, as well as all of their customer service, billing, etc. Yes, there are a bunch of people who would pay to watch episodes of “Game of Thrones,” but don’t want to get HBO. And there also a bunch of people who say they would be happy to subscribe to HBO, but not pay for cable. But HBO and Showtime executives figure that the upside of pleasing those people doesn’t outweigh the downside of angering the cable, telco and satellite guys, who give them a ton of dough.