Yeah, this has been so depressing to see. I disliked that there were ads when I signed up, but it was part of a bundle with other things (arcade, music, tv, fitness, etc.), so I gave it a try. But they've been increasing in frequency and they've been added to places they didn't exist before (like when you swipe to see the next article). It's still nowhere near as bad as reading a web page without an ad blocker, but it's definitely past my threshold of pain, and so I'm just using it less. I want the other things in the bundle, so they'll count me as a subscriber, but I'm using it less each day.

What's particularly odd is that some articles have no ads at all. Some have the same ad repeated literally 3-5 times in a short 1,000 word article. And the ads are all trash. They seem like those awful chum-boxes you see on web sites. Who in their right mind thought this would be appealing to the typical Apple user? I mean, regardless, I have never intentionally clicked on any ad on the web in 30 years, and I'm not going to start now.

It's sad because it's exposed me to regional newspapers from around the world. I live in California and see articles from newspapers in Idaho, Utah, Connecticut, upstate New York, Dallas, Miami, Chicago, etc. and even from other (mostly English-speaking) countries like Canada, England, Ireland, Isreal, and Australia. They even include some (English-language) stuff from China. I don't normally see news sources that diverse on the web because it takes more effort. But the ads just make it not worth it to continue using.