Watch the Commercial or Pay

Royal Philips Electronics has applied for a patent in the U.S. that would not allow the TV's remote control to change channels during a commercial, unless you have already paid a fee. The same would apply to digitally recorded programs: you wouldn't be able to skip the commercials without paying a fee. What's this world coming to? We already pay for cable just to be able to watch the programs at all, now we have to pay not to watch? This is an outrage! Well, okay, not that much of an outrage, not like NSA spying. But, it pisses me off nonetheless.