I watched the first game of the World Series this week, rooting for the Brewers, of course, the team I grew up with. It was a great reminder that sports-viewing can be fun. It was also a shocking reminder of what I’ve been missing by not watching live TV: the ads.
The game opened with a truly terrible political ad. Then came the sports betting, the beer, and, newest of all, a parade of ads for AI companies. At one point the pitcher walked off the mound for a quick conference, and the broadcast split the screen so I could watch an ad on one side and the field on the other. Even a tiny pause in the action is now ad territory.
I’ve been sheltered from all of this for a while, and I’d forgotten how annoying it is. Which got me thinking about why I protect myself from it, and how you can too.
Why Avoiding Ads Is Worth the Effort
Ads are designed to do one thing: convince you that what you have isn’t enough. That’s their whole job. Every one of them starts from the premise that something in your life is lacking and that a product, a bet, or a subscription will fix it. If you don’t feel like that’s true at the start of the commercial, they hope you will by the end.
When you cut down on ads, a few good things happen:
- You spend less. You can’t be tempted by things you never see. Most of my “I should get one of those” impulses came directly from something I saw advertised, particularly on Facebook.
- You feel more satisfied. Contentment is hard to hold onto when you’re being told all day long that you’re missing out. Remove the messaging and your own life looks better by comparison.
- You get your time back. Ads are a tax on your attention. Thirty seconds here and two minutes there add up to hours. Hours of your life you never get back.
- You reach your own goals. When you’re not constantly nudged toward someone else’s priorities, it’s easier to focus on your own.
I’ve never believed that more stuff leads to more happiness, and I’m retired now and trying more than ever to spend intentionally. Staying out of the way of the ad machine is one of the easiest ways I know to back up that belief. I didn’t realize how successful I’d been at avoiding it until I watched that game.
What I Actually Do To Avoid Ads
1. Skip live TV and ad-supported streaming. We don’t watch live TV. We only use streaming services without ads. I canceled Amazon Prime last year partly because they started charging me more to avoid ads on something I was already paying for. I despise that model, and canceling felt great. (Side Note: I also spend WAY less on Amazon in general now.)
2. Skip the ads on podcasts, or choose podcasts that don’t have them. I fast-forward through ads whenever I can, and I favor shows with little or no advertising, like ChooseFI and my friend Rishma’s excellent podcast, XO Conversations. Some big podcasts have become so ad-heavy that they’re no longer fun, and I’ve stopped listening to a few of them, including the Liz Moody Podcast, for exactly that reason. If a show makes me sit through five minutes of ads for every twenty minutes of content, it hasn’t earned my time.
3. Get off social media. Your feed is basically one big ad now, with just enough personal content sprinkled in to make you feel you should be there. I’ve been off for a while now, and my life is so much better for it. I wrote about the surprising truths about being off social media here.
A Few More Ideas That Shield You From Ads
- Use an ad blocker on your browser. It makes the web faster and calmer.
- Unsubscribe from marketing emails. Spend ten minutes unsubscribing, and keep going for a week as new ones arrive. Your inbox will thank you.
- Delete shopping apps and remove saved credit cards from your browser. A little friction goes a long way towards buying intentionally.
- Borrow instead of buying. Your library gives you books, audiobooks, and movies without ads.
- Opt out of catalog and junk mail, and turn off personalized ads in your phone’s privacy settings.
- Pay for ad-free versions of the few things you truly love and drop the rest. Pay for what delivers real value, and let the ad-supported stuff go.
Perhaps in the near future I will write another post about exactly how to do each of the items above.
Enough Is Easier When You’re Not Being Sold To
You don’t need to cut out every ad to feel the difference. Even removing the biggest sources (live TV, social media, ad-heavy podcasts) changes the daily background hum of “you need more.”
I’m not saying you’ll never want anything again. I still buy things that I regret. But most of the things I buy now are things I chose on my own terms, not things someone engineered me to want.
The World Series game was a great reminder. The Brewers were fun to watch. They won! The ads were a reminder of what I’m glad to have left behind.
Looking for more on the idea of “enough”? You may also like my post on the never-ending pursuit of enough.
