> I avoid ads for two reasons: first that they’re fundamentally biased, manipulative information sources, second that they drain attention, screen space, battery life, etc.
Neither of these points need to be true. Consider if someone had a text ad which said “We made widgets. Click here to see our widgets”. There's nothing manipulative about that, it need not use more than a small amount of network or CPU to deliver, and all but the most extreme members of the no logo camp would tend to agree that there's nothing manipulative about it.
> first that they’re fundamentally biased, manipulative information sources
Is an NPR-style “this program is sponsored by <big company>” manipulative or biased? What about the Amazon ads you get on a Google search for most consumer products, where it's clear who paid for them, they make no claim that the product is the best product or that they have the lowest prices, only stating that you can buy one from them, etc.?
> second that they drain attention, screen space, battery life,
Do Google text ads really do any of those? What about a static JPEG?
Remember, I'm not saying that the state of online advertising isn't terrible but that it's not fundamentally so. The industry has raced to the bottom but it'd clear up in days if publishers stopped allowing offensive ads to run on their sites or Chrome started actively blocking them.
Neither of these points need to be true. Consider if someone had a text ad which said “We made widgets. Click here to see our widgets”. There's nothing manipulative about that, it need not use more than a small amount of network or CPU to deliver, and all but the most extreme members of the no logo camp would tend to agree that there's nothing manipulative about it.