Why did viewers watch infomercials in the 1990s?

The New York Times

“Maybe it was the limits of technology,” Alex Williams says in trying to explain the obsession with infomercials that has died down since the 1990s. “Smartphones and tablets, with their limitless potential for customizing viewing habits, would not become ubiquitous for a decade and a half," he adds. "TiVo and other DVRs would not emerge to scramble America’s viewing habits for nearly a decade. In those days, families still tended to gather nightly around an actual television set and let whatever was on wash over them, including commercials — even long ones, apparently. The ’90s were also the heyday of Prozac, which may have left people open to easy feel-good solutions.“