True, but in the 1970s when I was a kid, I watched a lot of Saturday Morning cartoons which had a lot of toy ads, and my father's comic books had toy ads too. Selling crap to children too young to understand advertising has a long history.
yeah I remember seeing those ads when I was a child as well, however I think that the invasiveness has increased. the children have this "relationship" with people on youtube, where the youtuber addresses the whole audience, but in a way that children might perceive as friendliness, while the intentions may not be so genuine.