No, I think it probably has not. We're just page-views to be commoditized to most of these jerks.
Secondly, my work has never taken my near mobile advertising, so this is purely a personal opinion: you really think that avoiding adverts is anywhere near the top of reasons why people would use a mobile device over a PC/laptop? Have you ever known anyone cite that as a reason? Compare it to reasons such as portability, etc...
Disclaimer: Given a large amount of the small company I work for's revenue comes from selling advertising on our websites, and separate to that I spend six figures monthly on buying advertising elsewhere, I'm one of the "jerks" so perhaps my opinion is biased.
To add to this thought - It is well known that people tune out all those ads anyway so it couldn't possibly be a reason to leave the desktop, eh?
do the same for services, infrastructure, etc. Remove the advertising component and put it back in your pocket. E.g. if a shoe had cost $50, now it costs $30 because you've removed the shoe company's adveritsing component. Same for every product. You're now 30k per year richer.
However, you are now underinformed. Now pay for some apps that you would have seen the advertising in, in order to inform you. You are now only 15K per year richer after that additional direct outlay.
However, this direct outlay is smaller than the indirect outlay had been, because you are not supporting ad agencies, marketing managers, sending your products' message to people wildly not in its market, and so forth. you are paying for apps which inform you directly.
In addition to the fact that you have "cut out the middleman" - all this friction of paying people to send out messages on your used products' behalf - you (and everyone) ALSO gets the benefit of not having this constant high noise floor, of having to see tampon ads when you're a guy, beard care when you're a lady, and so forth.
In other words, EVERYONE is better off. There really is no catch - just like there really is no catch that there is 0 advertising necessary to get people to know about municipal water works.
If everyone had to constantly see ads about the benefits of getting water from a tap, even the people who already had that, AND it cost you - and everyone - 40% more due to all the advertising...well, that benefits no one doesn't it? We really can live in a cheap and cool world which as as good with respect to advertising as our daily interaction with water works advertising is: none at all, and the product is cheap and works and everyone knows about it and has it.
welcome to the future.
Removing marketing would not magically make everything cost cheaper; marketing is usually a small % of a product's costs. Several of my clients are multinationals selling various consumer goods; for them marketing is almost a rounding error compared to COGS, payroll, or facilities (i.e., less than 5% of gross expenses).
The primary effect of removing marketing is that suddenly all sellers and service providers would have difficulty reaching new customers. This would benefit existing companies, but it would kill startups of all kinds (tech and non-tech alike).
Do you really believe people just make products and they magically get purchased? Products are not utilities and your water utility example is so ridiculous I hope you are joking and trolling us all.
In the future they do.