While we’re griping. Airlines selling credit cards inflight. I paid my fare, but I am literally captive to your commercial.
So gross.
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But, if they were selling Girl Scout cookies … 
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Incredibly, in my view, now in Windows.
The world of “free” things is a largely make-believe. Some is real: there are things in the world produced for others that are made for altruistic reasons or because some people want to satisfy a creative urge.
But most of it is for the purpose of manipulating people for financial gain. Personally, I am frequently uncomfortable with “free”. Not always, but frequently, dishonesty/lack of transparency is lurking about in the company of free.
Nothing new under the sun. 
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Well, now that is just not fair!
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The minor-league baseball team in Spokane, the Indians, has a gentleman who has been hand painting those signs for like 40 years. What he is doing is practically art. Can’t find the relevant video.
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Not to mention (and by that, I mean also to mention) that uniforms now have advertisements right there on the sleeves. . .it’s capitalism hell to watch a baseball game these days.
As does the pitcher’s mound. 
Now that is advertising worth seeing! 
It’s so bad. The boards are digital until they change camera angles to go closer to the ice surface, then you see the “real life” ad on the board. It’s jarring. That, and when the ads switch in the middle of a play. But hey, they inserted so many gambling ads on commercial breaks now the boards seem like yesterday’s news.
But on the other side of the debate, all the hometown fans will complain if the team doesn’t go after the $35,000,000/year free agent. Have to pay that player somehow. Advertising helps defer that cost.
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That small potatoes! Ohtani has a contract for 10 years for a total of $700 million. Now that requires some advertising dollars.
He does not get 70 million each year. He gets $2 million each of the next 10 years. The other $680 million is to be paid in $68 million installments 2034-43. That’s a pretty nice retirement income.
The Dodgers better beef up their advertising dollars now.
That will be our kids or grandkids watching those ads. And complaining about them. Haha.
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It’s dollar amounts like this that have taken the fun out of Major League Baseball for me.
Although … I asked the Internet “How much is Babe Ruth’s salary in today’s dollars?” and it replied:
EconEdLink - Was Babe Ruth Under Paid?
October 3 2023 - Ruth’s salary in constant 2022 dollars was about $1.5 million per year. This is a little higher than the average baseball player makes today ($1.1 million in 2022), and much less than the stars make (Max Scherzer of the N.Y. Mets was the highest-paid MLB Player in 2022 at $43 million per year). In 2022, Half of all MLB players made the same as or more than the great Babe Ruth.
Stating the obvious: if we don’t buy what they are advertising, it won’t be worth advertising it.
(I realise it isn’t as simple as that!)
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We all like to think we are not affected by advertising, but we are. At a bare minimum, advertising captures “mind share.” At worst, it feeds our insatiable desire for more, making it difficult to “learn to be content.”
Fortunately, much of what I watch enables me to fast-forward through advertising. When I can’t, I hit mute.
I started this thread not to talk about advertising per se but to focus on the attempts of some hardware manufacturers to embed it in the hardware itself and on the rumors that Apple may expand its advertising, e.g., on Apple TV+. Apple News is bad enough in this regard. I certainly don’t want ads on Apple TV.
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The most frustrating part for me is that there isn’t actually much good causal evidence that advertising increases sales, and if it does, it’s much less effective than we’re led to believe. It’s just that of the four parties involved–customers viewing ads, companies buying ads, advertisers selling ads, and consultants analyzing the effectiveness of ads–three of them have no incentive to admit the emperor is not wearing clothes.
So there’s a very good chance we’re just making everything shittier for no reason with no end in sight.
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Some have reported that Netflix makes more money per customer on its ad-supported plan that it does on its higher priced ad-free plans.
Apple needs to show growth and around 30% of iPhone users are now keeping their phone for at least 3 years. Many people are keeping their iPads and Macs even longer. The launch page of Apple’s App Stores is nothing but advertisements.
If I were a gambling man I’d bet that Apple will introduce an ad-supported Apple TV+ tier this year.