Ads are an unavoidable element of digital life, and while we find them frustrating, they have a necessary role in helping companies connect their products with the relevant audience. But we know all too well how this can spiral out of control, and nowhere is a better example than Android, where Google is making them bigger, harder to ignore, and adding them to more places, obscuring useful information in the process.
Google’s reliance on ads for revenue means that it’s becoming harder to find the information we need. The obvious example of this is Google Search, where “sponsored” links take precedence over the most relevant websites. Android suffers from the same problem, and unlike Google Search, it’s harder to replace.
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I went a week without an adblocker to stop being such a hypocrite
Don’t try this at home. Really
The Play Store is getting more frustrating to use
I’m tired of scrolling through ads to find what I need
Launch the Play Store and you’ll see two sections. The top is a carousel of recommendations, the first of which, for me, is a campaign to unlock a new profile frame and photo card on TikTok. I’ve never heard of the artist mentioned, and TikTok lasted approximately two days on my phone before I decided it was a waste of time and space. So, is this relevant to me? No. Useful? No.
Below this banner are the “Suggested for you” recommendations. Here, Google is being especially cheeky.
There is another section called “Recommended for you” below that, which contains apps that are fairly relevant to what I’ve been installing and using on my phone recently. “Suggested for you,” on the other hand, is a sponsored list of apps like Temu and games like RAID: Shadow Legends. You know, the kind of apps that you watch ads for while unlocking content in a free-to-play game.
Scroll around a bit, and you’ll eventually see more interesting and relevant content like Google Play’s best apps of the year, but you have to work to get there. And things aren’t getting better.
See, Google has recently started requesting location permissions for the Play Store, presumably to show more ads related to local events. This means we can expect more ads and recommendations filling up the Play Store in future months.
Even if you only open the Play Store to search for an app, you’ll still run into problems, as Google added ads to the search bar in April 2023, and even an obvious search like “slack” or “monument valley 3” returns a list of sponsored ads first. But this is as bad as it gets, right? Wrong.
Google TV is even worse
Forced full-screen ads are a step too far
The For You page on Google TV devices has been subject to similar updates as the Play Store for a while. In January 2024, users were subjected to full screen video ads, which pushed everything else to the side, rendering their TVs useless for a few seconds.
Now, Google is displaying QR codes next to ads, so you can head straight to the product from your phone. But if you’re concerned about being too far away from your TV to scan a QR code, don’t worry. Google made them big enough that you can scan them from across the room.
Turning on my TV only to be blasted with a full screen ad is frustrating enough that I’ve started streaming content to my TV from my phone, bypassing the Google TV interface entirely.
Avoiding frustrating ads is tricky, but it’s somewhat possible on Android
Google’s grip on the Android ecosystem is so strong that avoiding ads is a serious challenge. While you can take steps to block ads on your phone, the process isn’t perfect as it can’t stop ads from cluttering up the Play Store or Search.
Google will let you block ads for a fee on YouTube, but it’s a heavy price to pay to make a service useful again, especially when Google unexpectedly raises the price. You can use alternative app stores, but the user experience drastically varies.
At the end of the day, it’s clear Google is a poster company for enshittification. It’s impossible to use its apps and products without being forced into viewing irrelevant ads, and the rising costs of its products may push more users to other products. But thanks to the near-total grip the company has on Android, this is significantly harder than it sounds. At this point, the well-curated App Store is making iOS look quite attractive to us Android users.
