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Not showing the user ads is also only half the problem. As the article said, those who pay not to view them are the more valuable advertising targets. There's nothing about those plans, as far as I've seen, that says they're not still tracking usage patterns, viewing habits, etc... and selling that info on to others who don't have a paid ad-free option.

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As far as I understand, the paid plans only opt you out of the ads but not the rest of the growth hacking bullshit that all commercial social media platforms do to some degree.

I agree.

I don't really object to ads as much as I object to the tracking that comes with them. Ad-free services that still do the tracking aren't really much of an improvement in my book.

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