Advertising overload

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Advertising overload is the practice of not only integrating advertising as a source of revenue in software and websites, but to also increase the population of ads within platforms that consumers end up using.

Applications in industries

Operating systems

Operating systems have been experiencing this decline into advertising, mostly from the large market lead Windows. King's Candy Crush frequently comes pre-installed on windows 10 operating systems, without first getting consumer consent, and this game has been additionally loaded with ads. Microsoft Solitaire Collection, a mainstay title for Windows devices, has had unnecessary ads inserted into the software. Users who purchased Windows 10+ licenses have reported a progressively increasing number of ads within the software. Windows 10 pop-ups that frequently advertise legacy users into purchasing Windows 11-supported hardware.

Smart televisions also have been seeing a sharp increase in advertisements within the operating system as well, such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Roku especially has been in hot water for them wanting to integrate ads whenever you pause whatever game you are playing. This does cause concern since these detection systems depend on constant spying on the consumer's activities.

A screenshot of the home screen for an Amazon Fire TV

The Xbox One dashboard as of 2022

Users who own consoles for Xbox One/Series, and PlayStation 4/5 consoles, have been receiving ads on the home screens of their systems for over a decade at this point. This practice has been occurring a console generation prior, such as on the Xbox 360.

Streaming services

In the late 2010s, there was a polarizing shift within the streaming service industry, wherein new free streaming services such as IMDB TV and Roku Television would be offered, with the caveat of ads. This had then inspired corporations who operated premium streaming services to do the same. In the early 2020s, paying users would then be forced to watch ads. Since then, users have only been reporting an increase in the amounts of ads that they watch on their services. These premium providers, such as Netflix, do offer versions of their services that are ad free, which consumers have been decrying as extortion. Plex is one of the rare few services which only offer a paid, ad-supported version of its service.

These ad-free tiers additionally are increasing in price, so it often forces consumers who are disinterested in alternative means to either pay an excessive amount of money to watch their favorite media, or be barraged by increasing ads.

Traditional Gaming

While not on par as to its Mobile gaming cousin, traditional video games have also been experiencing this heavy increase in advertising, albeit, mostly towards encouraging consumers to purchase products from the game's storefront. This has especially been seen and documented from titles such as Call of Duty and Fortnite. The home screen and launch screen experience for these games often try to market the player towards looking at the storefront to purchase whatever cheap microtransaction is for sale on that day. Often, these microtransactions are also part of some sort of advertising deal for another product, such as a new film or video game.

[Insert screenshots from Call of Duty and Fortnite]

Additionally, some platforms have gone so far as to leave notifications for users explicitly for these new products to purchase from this game. Most have kept these notifications in-game, but some have been reported to leave notification pop-ups in Windows. It is entirely plausible that these marketplace advertisements will increase in popularity from publishers as time goes on.

Mobile gaming

A feature often associated with mobile games in the modern day are ads, especially misleading ads. Unfortunately, publishers such as Puzzle1Studio, Metacore Games, and Rovio have a history of publishing titles that corner the consumer into frequently watching ads in the middle of their games. This practice additionally leeches into Microtransactions, wherein these app developers will intentionally try to coax users into watching ads, such as for increased rewards, or to reduce cooldown times.

Major software distribution platforms such as the Google Play store or the iOS App Store will often allow this behavior to persist from app developers, even featuring these overloaded games.

Social Media

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Web

See also: Advertising Overload in Websites

Ever since the introduction of cookies in the early 1990s, websites have been trying to make progressively more money off of advertisers. This pattern used to be easily thwarted, since the early days of the web meant that consumers could easily just choose to not visit these websites in order to not be so pervasively served with advertisements. Unfortunately in the modern day, consumers lack this capability, since mass advertising has become now a systemic problem. Popular news sources such as The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, and more, are filled to the brim with advertisements. As mentioned by publications such as The Huffington Post, The Conversation, and B2, the web itself has too many ads.

Notable Examples

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