@slothrop I'm shocked more people don't see #2 the way I do. I think average consumers are just so conditioned from birth by the flood of ads everywhere that they see it as normal and don't stop to think about what it actually is doing to them.

When an ad gets through my filters and catches my attention, it doesn't make me want to buy that product. It's intensely revolting and makes my mental image of that brand drop significantly. As much as possible I go out of my way to avoid buying services from business or voting for candidates who are particularly intrusive with their ads, but of course everyone does it so 100% boycotting advertisers is (sadly) not practical.

I do have absolute red lines though, and SMS spam is one of them. Any political candidate who personally texts me has lost my vote for that election season, if not for life.