- You can buy the device for $X, and it’s marked as being sold “with special offers” (a euphemism for ads that would be more explicit in an ideal world)
- You can buy the device for $X + $Y, and it’s marked as being sold “without special offers”
- You can buy the device for $X “with special offers” today, but you can spend $Y once you have the device to “disable special offers”
This case is pretty terrible because Samsung isn’t giving buyers the ability to pay them the $10 directly to disable ads while not being up-front about whether or not ads will be served.
- You can buy the device for $X “with special offers” today, then hack it and remove the "special offers".
I don't know how prevalent this is, but wonder if it's a consideration in deciding on the "money to disable ads" strategy.
When I was buying my Paperwhite, I just ordered the ad-free version from amazon (.com or .co.uk, don't remember which). And then a couple co-workers (agreed, computer people, but very much not the type that's into tinkering or cracking software) looked at me with surprise, because it turns out everyone does the "standard" route - order "special offers" from amazon.de, and save money while getting an ad-free Kindle, because AFAIR initially the special offers didn't even display in Poland, and when they did, apparently everyone knew how to jump some hoops to get rid of them.
But that information is never available at the point of purchase so most people get the surprise of see ads when they had no idea that was even a thing.