"Showing ads" is a phrase that covers a wide range of activity. Personally, I don't see anything wrong (and a lot of good) with a polite "hey, this thing exists

"Showing ads" is a phrase that covers a wide range of activity. Personally, I don't see anything wrong (and a lot of good) with a polite "hey, this thing exists" message. But once ads start trying to grab your attention, subvert your reasoning (often to your own personal detriment)... that's Evil. It's smeared out into billions of tiny bits, but that doesn't really make it any better. Polite advertising combined with targeting is also potentially very problematic. Passive targeting (people who are interested in X do Y so I will advertise X near Y) seems fine, but it in this day and age it intersects with tracking... which brings us back around the circle.