But think of all the free value!

I do like how they first keep stressing how much this is in the interest of the user (free value, great deal, etc etc) only to talk about "not subjecting the user to more advertising" in the last sentence of that paragraph.

Which narrative is it now?

Indeed, this is why my phone and mac volume meters are always set at the minimum, and I "opt-in" to audio by increasing the volume when I have the desire to listen to whatever the audio output is at that time.