Enough with the F#*!ing Ads (Premium)

We live in an era of subscriptions, where any content can be ours for the taking, at least temporarily, via a monthly or annual fee. But the flip side of this all-you-eat model is grim: because many cannot afford subscriptions—especially multiple subscriptions—many services also offer free, ad-based versions. And because ads don’t pay as well as subscriptions, those ads are getting more voluminous. And more annoying.

We all saw this shift on the web long ago. Back in the mid-2000s, one could make a great living using just Google’s ad system, but that changed over time to become a lot less lucrative, leading to more and more aggressive ads everywhere. Today, virtually all websites—yes, including this one, though we do offer a Premium subscription that removes most ads—are a cesspool of annoying ads that include animations, auto-playing videos, elements that jump on top of actual content, and other terribleness. I can’t read an article via Google News on my iPad without dodging these irritants.

In fact, just this morning, I ran into a new low: a site that displayed an auto-playing and non-stoppable video ad between every single paragraph in the story. There was no avoiding them. I almost always could see two at once.

But it’s not just this one site: ads are inescapable. It makes the fanciful scenes about pervasive advertising in the future as depicted in The Minority Report movie look quaint.

There are video ads at the gas pump now. And when you hear what used to be radio playing in a retail environment of whatever kind, these days, that’s just a streaming service. And oftentimes, it will be the free version of that service, complete with ads.

There are ads in Windows, as I’ve been complaining about since the initial release of Windows 8. You may recall that I referred to this practice of advertising inside of a paid product—the combination of free/ad-based and paid—as a “slippery slope,” and then can rue how very right I was when you realize how advertising has escalated in Windows and other Microsoft products in the years since.

And it’s not just Microsoft: content creators have been putting ads in paid products since the days of paper newspapers, and have continued this behavior in the digital ages. I’m looking at you, New York Times, and your horrible, horrible advertising. But this makes one wonder: how long before we see tiers of services like Netflix and Spotify that include monthly payments and advertising? Mark my words: it’s only a matter of time, folks.

And Apple, for all its golden PR, is just as terrible as any other Big Tech firm. It has ruthlessly copied third-party apps and services and included them for free in iOS and macOS, killing off partners. It has artificially promoted its own apps and services in its App Store, pushing customers away from what they’re looking for. And it has dramatically limited or prevented any relationship that content makers can have with their own customers if those customers find them on Apple platforms.

In recent years, these behaviors have escalated to include anti-tracking capabilities that prevent ad-based business models from working well, unless of course they’re Apple’s ads. And quietly, but suddenly obviously, Apple has been growing its own in-house ad business. And it’s on the verge of unleashing advertising in its own apps, including Apple Maps.

I’m dying to hear the user-benefit justification of that move. But that mobile is a hotbed for advertising right now should come as no surprise. When Microsoft forces Windows 11 users to open Edge, navigate to MSN, and be shown Bing ads when they use features like Widgets and Search highlights is one thing: that might put those ads in front of millions of users per month. But when Microsoft dramatically expands the number of ads it displays in Outlook Mobile on Android and iOS, that’s on another level: That will drive ads to tens or hundreds of millions of users per month. Microsoft has been trying to make a go of online advertising for almost 20 years. It’s finally happening.

Yes, Google and Facebook dominate the online advertising industry, but Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft all want a piece of that pie. Amazon has pretty much locked down online purchases, but Apple and Microsoft have, to some degree, marketed themselves as the anti-Google, the companies that sell products—things—not eyeballs. But the lure of the eyeballs is too strong, too cheap. Even Apple, with its heady hardware margins, can’t resist this market despite all its public posturing about you being the product. Sorry, Apple fans, you are the product. Well, you and your wallet.

One naturally wonders: OK, but what can we do about this? I may or may not be overly concerned about data collection, privacy, and targeted (or non-targeted advertising). And I may or may not understand the impact this can have on me, whether it’s just basic well-being or outright identity theft. Whatever. What can we do about this? Like, right now?

This is a big conversation. And it can go into weird areas involving ownership vs. renting, physical content vs. digital content, and the like. We need to touch on blocking ads on devices and on the network level, and perhaps investigate solutions like the Pi-hole. Products and services like Brave and DuckDuckGo. And maybe even alternative platforms, not beholden to Big Tech, that, for all their issues, will do a better job of not allowing insidious advertising to take over our lives.

And I gotta be honest here. I’m not even sure if I’m up to it. Not sure I can take all the steps needed to fully protect myself and those I love from this growing avalanche of crap. I’ve taken baby steps, for sure. I dabble in it, talk about it, and debate what makes sense.

I’m not into fake or cheap engagement, so when I reach out to you, you know it’s real: what should we do about this? What can we do about this? And what role can I play, if any, in trying to explain how this all works? Either way, I’ve had it. And I have to do something.