No Time for Ads

We live in a society full of advertisements. They’re on your radio, on your computer, on your drive to work. It’s inescapable. Yet, it is within our abilities to limit the time we spend on ads by paying a premium. So, is it worth it?

Visual Media

Remember watching TV and a 30 minute episode included 10 minutes of ads? With all the streaming options out there that amount of ad breaks would seem like an eternity. But where is the threshold for paying to escape the ads? As a baseline I’d say if you are watching an hour of ads or more than it is worth it to pay half an hour of your wages. If you have subscriptions many video services this could get pricy, but you could probably optimize by rotating them or maybe you reevaluate if you want to watch so much in the first place.

Audio Media

I consider music a different category because it is often background listening. No longer are we opening up the record player to enjoy an entire album. It’s now Spotify while you do something. Personally, I pay to avoid the ads because they’re distracting, but skipping the ads isn’t going to get you any time back.

If you listen to audiobooks and podcasts then I’d apply the same framework as visual mediums.

Scrolling Media

You can pay to have fewer or no ads on X. Personally I don’t think scrolling through ads wastes much time, but if you feel differently I think you have the framework to decide for yourself whether paying for it makes sense.

Conclusion

A certain amount of ads are unavoidable, but when it really begins to drag on your time I recommend paying. I bought Peacock with ads for the Olympics and a few days in decided to upgrade to ad-free. Also, I really hope we don’t end up in a place where everyone is wearing VR headsets and ads are blasted onto our eyes, but who knows what the future holds.