I'm kind of OK with that, honestly, as a) they're trivially skippable, b) there's no financial implication to watching it, and c) I turn on HBO to watch stuff so if they're letting me know I already paid for something that generally improves my life.

My issues with ads are really much more with third party transactions—I want to be the customer they care about pleasing. Unlike, say, newspapers, or cable, or social media.