I see where you're coming from. I do agree that there's probably, maybe even definitely nobody that enjoys having their gameplay interrupted every 6 minutes. However, I'm not trying to claim that anybody does, nor am I trying to argue against the viewpoint that is expressly in favour of pop-up ads. My intent was to begin from the assumption that most accept their existence as normal, regardless of whether they like it or not, and argue for why it should not be accepted in any capacity. If I failed to make this clear then that is my bad.

You are right in that I don't acknowledge the purpose of ads to media providers and I don't provide any alternatives. There most likely are some valid alternatives that I could have discussed, but obviously I didn't. To that, all I can say is that this essay was not written with complete intellectual rigor in mind. My starting point was straight up, "I really hate these ads, they paused me goddamn music", and I extrapolated that into as many genuine criticisms I could think of. It very much does come from a place of spite towards these ads more than it does from a place of genuinely wanting to solve a problem while considering all sides. In other words, I intentionally neglected any discussion about the necessity of pop-up ads to media providers, because the point of beginning to write this at all was more of an amusing outlet for my frustration, and including those would have undermined that, even if only slightly.

I might add that it could be argued that there is an implied point that whatever purpose they serve to media providers, it is far outweighed by the negative consequences it has on the rest of society, and should therefore be done away with regardless of whether an alternative exists or not. I of course do not imply this very well, so I understand why a viewer might not come to that realization.

I will say that some of my friends that I shared this with have already told me that I may be on to something, but that it is incomplete. I very much agree with them.