Thanks, I do actually appreciate that comment.

It might have sounded like that at first, but I'm not actually shilling for a company trying to increase ad revenue, and I do hate what current ads have become.

Ads should not manipulate or downright endanger people, and there are also cases where we need to find a different mechanism to deliver ads to people entirely - if a podcast (for me, that means mostly audio dramas) advertises itself as immersive and is not on a platform where I can get an ad-free experience, I simply won't be able to listen to it. Being immersed into a supernatural, cosmic horror doesn't go well with hearing about how I should switch my business page to SquareSpace.

I was fine with the "watch these 3 relevant ads in sequence and we leave you alone for the rest of the movie" concept, for example. That to me looks like an indirect form of payment, it's transparent (no obnoxious product placement) and I can enjoy the rest of whatever media I'm consuming in peace.