If their $300 bargain basement basement tv was ads supported to keep the price low, eeh, maybe.
But that isn't the case here.
Consumer Gmail is free. If Office 365 premium ever starts showing ads, people will also become upset.
And Microsoft will do nothing about it because people will use it anyways.
Not everyone on HN works in adtech, and very likely none of the people in this thread do either.
Or to put it another way, they are implementing communism by other means, with the same bad outcomes for the masses.
What difference is "Strategische Konzernentwicklung/corporate development/group development" to a Soviet 5-year plan, aggravated by quarterly reviews and HFT?
Gennadiy Gosplanovich would approve with a hysteric laugh.
I know. Been in several of them. Fortunately got out :)
edit: Of course you could call me a stoned hippie leftover from the 70ies, but that really was before my time. I'd counter that with management is on coke, crack or other medications which influence empathy in a bad way. Simple as that.
(Now playing "Ka-Ching!" with a pitchfork on the karmic harp)
Samsung learned from the industry represented here and it’s disconcerting to observe the lack of self-awareness in the vitriol being leveled at them from here. Equally disconcerting is that the same people rending their clothes over this probably overlook their Gmail messages being scanned and ads in their inbox, but a television, mein gott, a bridge too far.
This is your world, HN. We all live in it now. Sucks, no?