I don't think you have avoided it completely. Advertising is everywhere you look. Even in Netflix you still see brands in TV shows.

A better measure than anecdata is looking at actual advertising impressions per capita for the population at large.

There's also the question of qualitative change, such as personally targeted advertising and the infrastructure and methods (massive pervasive surveillance) required to support that.

Given global ad spending trends and the consequences of targeted manipulation and mass surveillance, I'd strongly suggest your life is not nearly so free of advertising's influence as you testify, and perhaps even believe.

> magazines and newspapers you had to buy but were full of ads

Computer magazines (and computer/video game magazines) had pretty good ads. They're still fun to read today.

I still miss the Fry's Electronics ad sections in newspapers.

A few years ago at least, print magazines still seemed to be alive in the UK, perhaps in part because they were often sold by newsagents.

And hopefully the blockers will continue to work, as long as your browser vendor, mobile phone vendor, etc, don't change the APIs to prevent or make it infeasible to do it.

There are still ads on Netflix and YouTube despite that, but yes I agree it is much more convenient.