Can't downvote this enough.

I recently cancelled my Toronto Star digital newspaper subscription - some $17/mo or some bullshit like that - because I was horrified to find after paying that frankly ridiculous subscription fee, I was still being fed ads within their iPhone app.

This obviously isn't the only - even recent - case of this.

In no way does a subscription payment mean you will not have advertisements or tracking.

It's infuriating to see time and time again how companies care just so little about the customer and so much about taking advantage of the very people who are paying them. :(

Unsubscribe and tell them why they. So much news online. Choose the ones that don't give you shit...

I had to call them to unsubscribe. You can bet I told them why. They usually try to do everything they can to retain you, but when I said 'unless you remove the ads, you can cancel me now', they proceeded to actually do it.

I paid for Bloomberg news thinking it would remove the ads, it didn't.

Write them to unsubscribe and tell them why, then

Same for The Economist (both paper and digital). Sad.

YT Premium I can confirm it has changed my outlook. Makes it super enjoyable now and has for years.

Why not just use an ad blocker?

I get value out of the videos I watch on YouTube and would like to support the creators so that they can continue to produce them.

Doesn't work cross platform e.g. iOS device or smart TV

There's this perverse situation at play here where the ones who are most likely to pay for an ad-free subscription are the ones who are most valuable for advertisers (the connection being that they have discretionary income).

Why is that perverse?

Because it makes it most lucrative to sell and show ads to the very people who pay to avoid ads.

I guess that doesn't strike me as perverse.

A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers.

Just because your target market is hard to reach doesn't mean it is perverse incentive or strategy failure.

More adds may drive some targets to alternatives, but as long as you make up the difference with the remaining eyeballs, it is a net win and not perverse.

To be perverse, you would have to show that you can make more sales with fewer ads

Wrong. You get ads if you pay for YouTube tv.

Micropayments are the future. The problem with today's micropayment is the fragmented payment systems.

We'll move from ads to micropayments for content, when you can pay with your bank account, fractions of a penny in real time for seconds and minutes of content.

There will be big technology providers that supply the technology for the studios and content creators and will include many in one package. You will be paying seamlessly with your gpay on your browser or gaming console or whatever.

Disney is introducing cheaper Disney+ with ads, so I guess some people can only afford to pay less.

(or you can see it as a way for DIS to raise their current subscription prices like netflix did)

No. Copyright predators and media moguls are never satisfied with the income. Ads always creep in.

shrug Then don't watch those. Nobody owes you content. If you can't agree on a price point satisfactory to you and the content producer and host, then... move on with your life and go for a walk?

My only point is to belie the assumption that paying the subscription will prevent them from treating me like a product. Then more importantly, I take the bloody walk and I'm violated with outdoor ads still - there is no dilemma of delivering content here, it's just pure cancerous ad.