No. They are meant to manipulate me personally, as well as other persons I care about. I will take them personally.
More broadly, I don't have to excuse bad behavior just because somebody's making money off it or because it makes some too-narrow metric go up. Yes, it's a complex and imperfect world. But to me that's a reason to work harder to make things better, not a reason for people to say, "fuck it" and make the world worse.
This, absolutely! they play on people's psyche and mental cabling by trying to guilt you in the same way your parent would ; it's manipulative, and I have an absolute hatred for these tactics.
This is different than what is currently going on with venture backed services like reddit and youtube. I would argue that we should block ads there too, but there it is an arms race where we have to consider ways to protect ourselves from encroaching privacy violations. It's much ruder, and that is something we should actually be mad at.
I just put my money toward people who don't do that crap, and I want the manipulators to see that I'm giving money to their non-manipulating competitors.
They don't know you; they don't know me. I'm a nobody, just like you.
Parental manipulation works because it's completely reasonable given the relationship for it to be effective. It's a betrayal of trust.
If a company tries that tactic and it "works" too well, that's an opportunity to evaluate your psyche, not get mad at them.