An ad-free house is definitely a good idea. I grew up in a household where we had a habit of always muting the TV when commercials came on. I really appreciate that that was a priority for my parents, and I think it was instrumental in my developing frugal attitudes in my life and rejecting at least some of the constant drive to get more and more stuff.

I can't help but think that, if our society didn't already have a tradition of mute buttons, that it wouldn't be allowed nowadays. "Giving the consumer the means to easily ignore the messages that support the content they enjoy? That's stealing!"

It's downright painful to experience the "normal" level of ads in everything -- TV commercials, ads on the Web, the insultingly obnoxious sort of ads that play on most radio stations.

I'm with you. I block every single ad I can. I avoid commercial TV and radio, because I loathe and detest the advertising industry.

If it ever becomes possible to block real-world advertisments with some sort of augment reality sunglasses, that overlay classical art or even a white square over advertisments, I will be their first customer.

I'm sure it has happened in other places as well but recently, the new mayor of Grenoble, France, didn't renew the public advertisement contract with J.C.Decaux and removed all billboards from public space.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1125...

Popcorn Time is piracy. You can get ad-free TV from legal streaming and PBS. Amazon and Netflix have tons of kids programming.

I'm in South America, a 3rd world country. So it's either piracy or my kids will be watching Alf on the local TV station.

I feel this to be a great example for the tremendous value created by piracy in modern society.

Imagine piracy was really capable of bankrupting these companies [that profit from manipulating children]. Wouldn't you torrent all day and all night?

Who would then make the content?

Well, those companies whose business model isn’t "let’s throw as much ads at children as possible so they annoy their parents and those then buy all our products"

They do offer an alternative. You can pay to watch each show. You're just choosing to ignore it or think it's too expensive to justify stealing it.

There is no way to pay for each show. Even they pay-to-watch channels are full of ads, actually, the paid channels have more ads than all other channels.

Which is why I stopped watching TV completely, I watch news and documentaries from public channels online, but that’s it.

You can buy ad-free content from Amazon, iTunes or Play Store. Or, you know, DVDs.

Well, the only content I can buy on Amazon, iTunes or the Play Store is dubbed and in 720p quality.

That’s shit.

If I want to get 1080p quality, undubbed, I have to either pirate, or order a DVD from Amazon.co.uk, which leads to obscene delivery costs. (Amazon.com doesn’t even deliver overseas).

Smaller creators who are worth paying.

Now that I think about it, I'm exposed to very little advertising these days. I stopped watching television years ago, and thanks to Ghostery I see few if any Internet ads.

I wonder if this has improved my mental health? Certainly, it wastes my time less.