I hate when they do that to TV shows. Of course watching it in 4:3 with black bars is better than having it zoomed into to get 16:9, but have the top and bottom cut off.
I don't know why it's hard to understand that having the complete picture without half of it removed is superior. You can still zoom in on literally any TV from the past what like 15 years at least, right?
Dude, back in my day, I'd regularly have customers bitch and moan about "the black bars cutting off my picture" when they'd rent the widescreen edition of something by accident. People are idiots.
Idk...most people probably aren't familiar with aspect ratios at all, let alone what aspect ratio their own TV supports. Especially back in the day your talking about. I wouldn't just write them off as idiots, it's a pretty simple mistake to make. Especially for those who simply don't care to track this information in their brains; which is completely reasonable in this age of information overload.