A government funded maps program would be great same with a government funded search engine that had to try and compete with international search engines with more resources.
You can choose not to use Google though and avoid their ads.
You can choose not to use any service that uses ads and only use ones that allow you to pay for ad free experiences.
Banning ads removes that possibility for others when you can solve the problem today for yourself.
> You can choose not to use any service that uses ads and only use ones that allow you to pay for ad free experiences.
Ads are so incredibly pervasive I effectively cannot.
There's stores I go to which only post their hours on instagram. There's friends I communicate with where my only communication avenue is instagram.
When I walk outside of my door I see billboards and ads, when I install an app required for my daily life, it's full of ads. iPhone, android, and windows all have ads by default littered throughout default apps.
We live in a society, and becoming a weirdo who refuses to use anything that doesn't run on my linux-phone will isolate me from that society. It's perfectly possible to criticize a thing and imagine alternatives without first becoming richard stallman.
> You could call the store or your friends, no ads there.
If everyone called the store to check if they're open instead of looking on instagram, the employee would never get time away from the phone to actually serve customers, you're suggesting something ridiculous. Text and phone calls aren't replacements for each other either between friends.
> What are these apps that are required for your daily life?
The app I have to use to buy train tickets has ads in it, mostly for fashion items sold at stores within train stations.
The app for checking train schedules is full of ads, and while there are open source apps on android for this, on iPhone you can't sideload open source apps so there's no ad-free alternatives. Releasing an app on iOS costs $100/year for the developer, so the incentive is not to make free open source apps. I really miss android. The iOS app store has so much completely garbage adware, and I can't even code up simple ad-free apps for myself without buying a macbook.
The app I have to use to send support requests to my landlord (an app dedicated to just that purpose) has a couple banner ads. The corporate landlord requires using it, and will not respond to phone calls.
My cell phone company's app, which is the only way to check my plan's remaining data, has a truly incredible number of ads.
.... and that's just off the top of my head. They're everywhere.
But even if all my apps were ad-free, the billboards posted everywhere, on busses, in trains, on buildings, are inescapable.
Instagram has been around less than 15 years. I'm suggesting you do what people did for the previous 100 years. You're not willing to do that to avoid ads? You're not willing to call or text your friends?
Instagram would be gone without ads, what would you do to fill the gap then?
Buy your tickets at the station? Use the train company website for the schedules?
Does your landlord or phone company have a website? What phone company is running third party ads in their app?
> Instagram has been around less than 15 years. I'm suggesting you do what people did for the previous 100 years. You're not willing to do that to avoid ads? You're not willing to call or text your friends?
The fact that instagram is relatively recent doesn't matter here, what matters is the social norms. You're a social outcast if you don't use ad-ridden software.
I'm not willing to be a depressed loner with no friends in order to avoid ads, if that's what you're asking. Just because I can unalive and no longer see ads doesn't mean that I have to like seeing them.
Social norms have changed, and I can't fix that by myself. I'll happily argue that social norms being ad-funded and brainwashing the populace, myself included, is bad though.
> Does your landlord or phone company have a website?
The cell phone provider's website has just as many ads as the app, they're equivalent. There isn't a webpage for my landlord.
Plenty of people manager to avoid being social outcasts without using Instagram. Keeping up with your friends pictures and reels is hardly a needed part of friendship. Call, text, message your friends, organise to hangout, put their birthdays in your calendar.
You're not willing to make literally the smallest of sacrifice to get what you want in avoiding ads. You've chosen a discount mobile network, go with a premium one to avoid ads.
If you're not going to be willing to pay for these things today how will your life be when you're forced to because they are no longer subsidised by advertising?
A government funded maps program would be great same with a government funded search engine that had to try and compete with international search engines with more resources.
You can choose not to use Google though and avoid their ads.
You can choose not to use any service that uses ads and only use ones that allow you to pay for ad free experiences.
Banning ads removes that possibility for others when you can solve the problem today for yourself.