Behind this bill is the cost of making high-quality programming. Although much has been said about how Netflix and Amazon have disrupted the video business, no media company has figured out how to make premium movies or TV shows significantly more cheaply. In fact, competition has driven production budgets even higher. Ultimately, these costs are paid by viewers (especially if they choose to watch without ads).

But the rise of digital video is bringing back more than just bloated bundles and bills. Many companies are returning to TV’s original business model: selling you anything and everything but the television show in front of you.

For decades, all TV content was “free.” Networks like ABC and CBS distributed their shows free of charge because they weren’t really in the business of selling audiences 30 minutes of entertainment. Instead, they were selling advertisers eight or so minutes of the audience’s attention. While most digital video services do charge their viewers, their real objective is to lock audiences into their ever-expanding ecosystem. Their TV network is the ad.

Amazon, Apple and Roku, for example, use their networks to drive sales of their devices, software, services and other products (to quote Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, “When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes”). For YouTube and Facebook, original movies and shows are about increasing the number of ads they serve and the prices they charge for these ads.

AT&T spent some $109 billion buying Time Warner in the hopes that series like “Game of Thrones” and “Friends” would help the company add more wireless subscribers, increase data usage and expand its digital advertising/data arm, Xandr. Today, AT&T gives HBO away to many of its subscribers.

Similarly, the real goal of Disney+ isn’t the creation of a new revenue line for Disney. Instead, it’s about giving the company the ability to know each of its fans individually, including what content and characters they like, and how much, and to sell to them directly. This is why the annual plan is priced at only $70 . Monthly subscription fees are trivial if Disney can use the service to sell more $5,000 cruises. The same applies for merchandise, movie tickets and other products.

To this end, many analysts believe the greatest threat to Netflix isn’t imminent competition from storied media giants like Disney and WarnerMedia, but the fact that it’s only in the video business and doesn’t even sell ads.