OP has a view setting that magnifies ads. In my view setting (as close to third party apps as it gets), the ads take up much less space and there is no trending section. OP is choosing a bad layout to exaggerate their point.
I’m not entirely sure but I only changed settings when things bothered me and I never saw this sort of ad. I’m not sure if I even browsed popular before I changed some settings so I’m not an objective judge. My point is, users are not trapped with this sort of ad environment. You use classic view instead of card view and the ads get a little differently annoying. Not huge screen space gobblers but sneaky post-lookalike pests.
OP has a view setting that magnifies ads. In my view setting (as close to third party apps as it gets), the ads take up much less space and there is no trending section. OP is choosing a bad layout to exaggerate their point.
Curious since I never used the official app but are these things opt in or opt out?
I’m not entirely sure but I only changed settings when things bothered me and I never saw this sort of ad. I’m not sure if I even browsed popular before I changed some settings so I’m not an objective judge. My point is, users are not trapped with this sort of ad environment. You use classic view instead of card view and the ads get a little differently annoying. Not huge screen space gobblers but sneaky post-lookalike pests.