On being immune to advertising
More than a year ago, I started self-hosting (almost) everything for privacy reasons. The few subscriptions I did keep, I selected based on my perception of the company's actual business model.
A side-effect of this focus on privacy is that I almost never see ads, pay-walled features or, more generally, 'upgrade paths'. As a result, my expenditure on non-essential purchases plummeted. At the same time, I have never desired less.
Recently, an ad for a note-taking tablet did somehow manage to get through. I already have an old tablet which works perfectly fine for this. I have also thought about buying this specific note-taking tablet ever since.
Maybe advertising is having more impact on my brain then I ever dared to admit?