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It might be worth defining your point in more detail. Here's the spectrum as I see it with examples, from most invasive to least. I'm curious where you (and others) draw the line.

- TV / streaming ads that fully disrupt your content.

- Interstitial / popup ads that let you close them after some amount of time.

- Interstitial / popup ads that let you close them immediately.

- Banner ads that try to emulate your content. Ex: Sponsored search results that are specified as ads. Product placements in movies.

- Banner ads that clutter and introduce noise to your content but don't disrupt it directly. Ex: web banners, sports stadium billboards, highway billboards, store front signs, guidance signs ("yard sale down the block"), brand logos on products (esp. on athletes), "temporary" sale notifications.

- Subversive ads masquerading as content: UNDISCLOSED sponsored product reviews

- Ads masquerading as content: DISCLOSED sponsored product reviews

- Unintentional ads: genuine, un-incentivized product reviews. Answering your friend's question "what IDE do you use for X?".

- Indifferent and unconscious ads: your choice to use a product in public and not try to conceal that use.

Almost no one is going to argue against the first few being a net negative, and almost no one is going to argue that the last one is even worth thinking about. So where do you draw the line?

> I'd pay $2 to not own your thing specifically because I don't want more things.

You can do exactly that in many cases. Youtube Premium. Hulu tiers. I'm curious how many people nod at that quoted statement but don't actually do it. It's an easy choice for me to do it because I want to support content creators and the opportunity cost of my time is way higher than what these features cost.

Full Disclosure: My F2P multiplayer games get 75-90% of their revenue from advertisements, and most of that is interstitials. Whenever possible, I configure and experiment with close timers to find the right balance of UX and revenue. If I didn't have ads in my games, they would not feasibly exist. Unlike your home internet, most hosting providers charge per byte of data transfer.

That said, I also offer an ad removal in app purchase at a net loss to me. It's a net loss because what typically happens is players who spend the most time in the game are the ones that are significantly more likely to buy it. But the players who spend the most time in the game are also the ones who would be seeing the most ads if they didn't buy it. They are also producing the most data transfer (ie cost to me).



My criteria for acceptable product testimonials:

1. It's truthful.

2. It's about the product itself, not about how it could change your life.

3. There's no monetary consideration for it - not even the product being provided at a discount or free.

Your last two examples are the ones that are on the right side of all of those lines.

And yes, I pay for youtube premium and twitch turbo. Doing so improved the quality of those services immensely.




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