The reason for my confusion is that when I saw a trailer for the show that came on when 30 Rock had ended, I was only half-watching the screen. I was lying on my stomach with my laptop open next to me, playing 30 Rock on Netflix (through an account I share with my parents and sister) while checking Twitter on my phone, texting a few different friends, and eating a bowl of cereal.

How did I discover that Orange is the New Black is actually a real original show that Netflix rolled out last month? Only when I saw a Buzzfeed article about it on Facebook, when a few people at work mentioned it on Twitter, and when my sister texted me to ask if I’d watched it yet. This weekend, I finally opened up my laptop to watch it. And when I did, I watched five episodes in a single sitting.

I’m the type of person who keeps cable executives up at night. I have never owned a physical television, I wouldn’t think of paying for cable, and I rarely even pay for what I watch on the internet. (And when I do tune in, I’m distracted enough to confuse a trailer with actual programming.)

But my viewing habits aren’t all that unusual among my generation. And the way we discover and watch TV isn’t changing anytime soon. Earlier this year I wrote about the economics of my generation’s viewing and reading habits, and what it means for content companies when a group of people who grew up on free news, music and movies become adult consumers.

Plenty of readers criticized us for being a bunch of free-loaders, which they’re totally entitled to think, since few of my friends have any interest in paying for access to The New York Times or The New Yorker.

But the one service that everyone said they would pay for? Netflix. I’m currently using my parents subscription, but if they ever rescinded that generosity or stopped subscribing, I’d happily pay up. And the reason I suspect that my friends and I are willing to fork over for Netflix is that, in general, it feels like the company understands how we want to watch TV.

Almost all of my friends all tuned in for Arrested Development, House of Cards, and now Orange Is the New Black. Part of the reason was that all of that original content was basically good, with high-quality actors and production values. (I know Amazon Prime has original content, but I’ve never met anyone who has watched it.)

But there’s more to it than just good programming. Once you’ve paid your monthly Netflix bill (or borrowed someone’s login), the content at least feels free. Hitting “next episode” doesn’t feel like making a purchase the way it does on iTunes, even if it ultimately costs you more than it would to buy a few episodes each month.

You can sit down and watch an episode a week if you want, or more likely, you can binge on five or six episodes at a time to catch up with your friends and participate in the conversations on text and Twitter.

The key is, it’s available whenever you want it, on whatever device you want to watch on. TV Everywhere has become a mantra for executives in the industry to preach, but in reality few companies deliver on the promise. Netflix, more so than most other companies, gives consumers a healthy taste of what that Nirvana could be like.

Contrast Orange is the New Black with Mad Men, which airs Sunday night but isn’t available for purchase on iTunes until Monday morning — at which point, an entire work day has passed where Twitter or co-workers could spoil the plot for you. Does it make my friends more likely to pay for cable so they can watch Sunday night? Unfortunately, no — at least anecdotally, people seem more likely to download it illegally on Sunday night (they’d pay if it were available), than wait to watch until Monday night to buy it on iTunes and have a lesser experience. Because as I’ve written before, if you want to get the Twitter jokes, you need to watch when everyone else is watching too.

I don’t think that illegally downloading content or borrowing logins from friends and parents are attractive traits of my generation. And, of course, AMC has a different economic structure than Netflix — it relies on TV sponsors for revenue and likely won’t change its programming windowing any time soon.

But Netflix’s success at hooking us on its original programming should remind networks like AMC that we are willing to pay for content — assuming the network then provides the content in a way we want to consume it.

And with Orange Is the New Black, I realized these feelings aren’t limited to millennials when my Mom texted me to say that she and my dad had started watching the show on their Roku. I should really check it out, she saId.

To read previous Digital Life columns, click here.

Sky Go Extra is £5 (USD $7.93) per month for existing Sky customers and builds on Sky Go, the company’s on-demand service for mobile and connected devices (which is free to subscribers). Customers who sign up for Sky Go Extra can also watch on-demand streaming video on four devices, up from the two allowed under Sky Go.

The offerings available to Sky Go Extra users depend on their underlying Sky TV package. Customers who already pay for the Sky Movies pack can “download blockbuster releases around six months after they have ended their run in cinemas,” according to the release. That includes movies like Avengers Assemble and Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, as well as all the James Bond films. Customers who don’t pay for the Sky Movies add-on can download TV shows from Sky channels and from partner channels like Nickelodeon, Disney and HBO — including HBO hits Girls and Game of Thrones, AMC’s Mad Men and Fox’s The Following.

Once users download Sky content, it’s not to keep: “Sky Movies content can be watched for up to 30 days and once viewing commences is available for 48 hours. Most other Sky content can be watched for up to 7 days and once viewing commences is available for 48 hours.”

Other U.K. companies are also experimenting with downloadable video. The BBC’s iPlayer lets users download BBC programs to computers, iPhones and iPads for offline viewing. (Content can be watched for up to 30 days, with playback available for seven days after viewing begins.) The Amazon-owned Lovefilm doesn’t allow offline viewing, but plans to do so.

Vivendi just launched (PDF) Watchever on Wednesday. The service offers access to “entire seasons of award-winning U.S. series, blockbusters and international art house films” for €8.99 (USD $11.99) per month. Among the “thousands” of available titles: AMC shows Mad Men and Breaking Bad, early seasons of HBO shows like The Sopranos and Sex and the City and films like Slumdog Millionaire and There Will Be Blood.

The Next Web, which first reported the news, thinks this “could be the start of a trend in which Apple cuts deals for regions where there is a strong localized offering that delivers content appealing to Apple TV owners there.”

Netflix is not available in Germany. The Amazon-owned Lovefilm, which offers both streaming and physical DVDs, is available in Germany but, like Amazon Instant Video in the U.S., it’s not available on Apple TV.

With the satellite TV bundler already grabbing headlines over an especially pungent carriage dispute with AMC  Networks, Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett took Dish to task Thursday for implementing a series of new ad-skipping features into its new “Hopper” digital video recorders.

In fact, noting that Dish is ironically introducing these features at a time when its threatening to keep AMC’s ad-industry focused hit drama Mad Men away from its 14 million viewers,  Moffett pungently titled his report, “It’s not just Mad Men … Dish hates all advertising.”

On Thursday, Dish sent out a press release unveiling its new ad-skipping features: “The new ‘Auto Hop’ capability for the Hopper whole-home HD DVR system is being activated today, and it allows customers to skip all commercials for most recorded primetime HD programs shown on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC when viewed the day after airing,” the company said.

Noted Dish product management VP Vivek Khemka: “Viewers love to skip commercials. With the Auto Hop capability of the Hopper, watching your favorite shows commercial-free is easier than ever before. It’s a revolutionary development that no other company offers, and it’s something that sets Hopper above the competition.”

Moffett, however, is apparently not in the consumer group Khemka is talking about.

“It’s hard to maintain good affiliate relations when you introduce a service designed to cut out the bulk of your affiliates’ revenues,” Moffett wrote. “Auto Hop adds to an already long list of broadcast-unfriendly features of Dish’s service, including 30 second skip buttons on their remote controls…”

Going back more than a decade in terms of media technology litigation, Moffett noted that early DVR pioneer ReplayTV introduced similar functionality in the late 1990s, and the resulting litigation brought against it by broadcasters ultimately led the company into bankruptcy.

“And all this comes at a time when Dish (amid ongoing litigation with AMC Networks) is taking a hard line on programming costs by preemptively announcing its intention not to renew its carriage agreement with AMC, home to the wildly popular Mad Men (which, ironically, is about … advertising),” Moffett added.

This AMC thing really could be nasty …

With ratings for AMC shows including Mad Men and The Walking Dead way up, AMC Networks on Thursday reported a 20 percent uptick in first-quarter revenue to $326.2 million. However, AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan warned investors of a significant “material effect” should Dish remove the company’s channels — which include AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WeTV — once the current carriage agreement expires on June 30.

“You should be aware that the loss of the affiliate fee and advertising revenue that comes from the carriage by Dish of our national networks may have a material impact on our financial results,” Sapan said.

While the vast majority of carriage disputes between programming suppliers and multi-channel operators have been settled before popular shows were pulled off the air, this particular impasse is compounded by litigation.

A New York appellate court last week ruled that Dish destroyed electronic evidence in a four-year-old case involving defunct service Voom HD. AMC Networks sued Dish for $2.5 billion for terminating its carriage of those channels, and the court has ruled that case can go to trial.

Meanwhile, as AMC tries to as much as triple its carriage fee for AMC — reported to be around 25 cents per subscriber — as well as secure carriage for lightly watched channels such as WeTV, Dish executives are quietly noting that their largely rural subscriber base is not hugely passionate about urban-centered, upscale-skewing shows like Mad Men.

In short, this carriage fight has the potential to drag on for a while. Stay tuned.

Speaking to investors Monday morning to discuss Dish’s first-quarter earnings report, Ergen said that digital distribution of shows including Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead is a key factor as to why Dish and series network AMC aren’t able to come to terms on a new carriage deal.

Also read: We’ve got hard data: Netflix really is killing Nickelodeon

“One of the things that programmers have done is they’ve devalued their programming content by making it available in multiple outlets,” Ergen said. “Our customers are not really saying ‘we want to pay more money,’ they’re saying ‘we want more flexibility in our programming and we don’t want to pay more.’

“From a timing perspective that is just a contract that we can change,” Ergen added. “We believe the product has been devalued, not that there are not some good programs, but it’s been devalued because you can get it multiple ways and customers have more flexibility to get the programming. It’s not quite the same as if something were exclusive.”

Dish officials say that pending renewal of an agreement, flagship channel AMC, as well as Sundance Channel, WE tv and IFC, will go dark for the satellite service’s nearly 14 million subscribers on July 1.

Dish’s carriage accounts for around 15 percent of AMC’s base of nearly 96 million homes. According to data provided by SNL Kagan, AMC commands carriage fees that average around 25 cents per subscriber. And AMC annually commands around $300 million in total affiliate revenue.

For its part, AMC claims the Dish’s position is influenced by litigation between the two parties over the now-defunct Voom Networks. Last week, a New York appeals court denied Dish’s bid to continue the $2.5 billion breach-of-contract case, ruling that the satellite provider had destroyed evidence.

With AMC seeking to as much as triple its current carriage deal, Dish contends it’s position is just about business — AMC’s ratings, it says, don’t merit an increase.

But that argument holds only so much water.

As Adweek noted, stellar ratings performances for shows like The Walking Dead spurred 33 percent audience growth in the key adults 18-49 demographic for AMC in the first quarter. The network now significantly out-delivers news channels like CNN and Fox News Channel in that demo, even though those networks respectively command much higher carriage fees of 54 cents and 78 cents per subscriber.

Netflix already has exclusive rights to past seasons of AMC’s Mad Men and Breaking Bad in the U.S. and Latin America through Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) and Sony.

The package also covers non-exclusive rights for other shows from AMC Networks, including Portlandia and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (IFC); Braxton Family Values, My Fair Wedding, and Bridezillas (WE tv); and All On The Line with Joe Zee and Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys (Sundance).

Netflix has been expanding existing deals and adding streaming video steadily and CEO Reed Hastings said earlier this year efforts would step up going into the fourth quarter. Showing signs of significant improvement took on new urgency with the fallout over changing pricing plans and spinning DVDs into Qwikster paired with the announcement by Starz Entertainment that it would not renew. Starz programming includes many of the first-run movies on Netflix.

This isn’t a huge deal but it’s a sign to subscribers that Netflix continues to look not only for new programming but for exclusive programming and a lure for potential subscribers interested in certain kinds of cable programming without paying monthly cable rates. In addition to building library content, Netflix has put a particular focus on getting past seasons of current shows from across networks.

In terms of TV, that puts it strategically between Hulu Plus, which so far remains the go-to place for next-day access to the largest amount of prime-time shows plus catch-up for current seasons and depth in terms of past seasons, and Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), which is increasing its stock of shows that are off the air.