Somehow, that reminds me on 20Q...

Europe here.. I decided to switch last year because i had some issues with my connection - few times a week the modem would just disconnect for anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes while `re-syncing`. The quality of international phonecalls was very bad. And people complained my phone was often not reachable.

So i decided to swap ISP's and get an all-in-one offer. I'm anything but very happy though - Ok - this modem not disconnects. In return sometime the line just goes bad for a few seconds, breaking streaming video, games or whatever you were doing. The television works, but there's an insane 5-6 second lag switching channels. The promised speed was 20Mbs, i only got 10Mbps as the other 10 is reserved for television, and i don't get to use it even not when the TV receiver is totally switched of. The quality of phone calls is ok, but the pricing is not - it's actually more expensive to call using the DSL land line than mobile. The modem is a piece of sh1t, without any configuration options except wifi on/off and port forwarding. It has no (missed) call log or line status and quality information or anything else you'd expect from a good modem.

Being the Netherlands, with a lot of competition and a sophisticated infrastructure, you'd expect better. It may be that the cabling is bad that i suffer from a suboptimal connection, after all the last mile of copper is over 50 years old. A 4G connection would likely be of better speed and quality than my DSL (yet way overpriced).

So.. what are the options. Go back to my old ISP with good support. Or try a cable provider - just i don't hardly use TV and am unwilling to pay an extra obliged 30 euro for that, making the choice easily go to DSL again.. I know, it's a luxury issue in a country with enough competition and infrastructure - but i rather have it just works.

In The Netherlands it's usually thought that diet was the most influencing factor behind this effect. Over the last centuries we have had plenty dairy products, no severe food shortages, in contrary, we had a reasonable high availability of varied food. Combined with relative welfare in the golden age. There are probably many other factors too, however, to grow tall you need more food on average, and so it must be available first.

Which ethical choices you mean, the ones made by me as consumer or by them?

Spotify - 10 euro to get ad-free version
Netfix - 9 euro, ad free
HBO - 15 euro
Youtube - ? euro.
Torrents - free & ad free
National television - tax. about 50 euro / year - and still loaded with ads

So there are options, but they cost quite a bit, especially if you would want more than one. Having said that, maybe youtube will offer a really reasonable price (like $20 yearly) and i would consider it, but i doubt their pricetag will be that low.

I can't help that the 'default' state is to bombard listeners or viewers with ads. With up to 10-30% airtime spend on ads on some commercial TV but also on our national (tax payed) radio. With 30 second ads to watch a 2 minute video. And webpages with 75% ads and 25% content. And worse: the most annoying kind of ads, the ones that makes you pull your hair and actively makes you mute or switch channel.

If ads were not that obtrusive, no-one would bother to block them. However it became an arms race - where the blockers got better and the ads even more annoying.

So, i have no idea why you find it unethical that i, or any other customer, protect myself from ads. Or is it unethical to wear a safety belt, or earplugs at a rock concert, or safety glasses when using machinery, because i see very little difference between physical and mental damage (annoyance). I have the right to protect myself from unwanted influences.

I could even turn the argument and say no-one has the right to (un)consciously steer my (shopping) behaviour. Others would even make the argument that obesity and smoking addictions are largely caused by advertising. So again, who's being unethical here?