This is a patently ignorant and ridiculous statement. They absolutely shove their own store garbage every release and upsell Nitro at every opportunity. Here's an article from last year about them explicitly introducing third party ads.
https://techbriefly.com/2024/04/01/discord-introduces-ads-to...
Upselling is basically just unlocking additional features. If you object to that, then you're objecting to the freemium model, not to "ads".
They do that, they call them "quests". Companies pay them to promote their product/service and users get rewards for doing a task (like playing a game, watching a video, etc.) https://discord.com/ads/quests
The article that parent linked even says it.
* please drink verification can
"Belligerence" as you call it is direct, unambiguous, and will probably be remembered.
But I've never seen these ads myself, so it's surprising.
The Americans do take pervasive advertising to the next level though, with product placement, "influencers", and other deceptive tactics. Their behaviors are a major cost to the legal system, because more legislation has to be introduced to govern against their obviously anti-social and exploitative behavior.