I didn’t intend to signal a blanket disagreement with ‘lotu, but rather to indicate that their position rests on assumptions that don’t necessarily hold for all

I didn’t intend to signal a blanket disagreement with ‘lotu, but rather to indicate that their position rests on assumptions that don’t necessarily hold for all cases. I actually agree with most everything you say here, except for grouping all advertising together. Some ads are generally helpful for all the reasons you list here; others are incredibly predatory. To move the conversation forward, we need to move past “ads are good” vs “ads are evil” and start talking about the benefits and drawbacks of particular kinds of ads. What Apple’s doing here seems like a good start to me— they’re reinforcing the idea that (app) publishers can and should exercise editorial control over the ads their app displays, and having somebody to hold accountable for bad decisions is a prerequisite for any meaningful discussion of what is and isn’t appropriate.