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Why Am I Paying a Premium Price for a Google Pixel Phone Filled with Ads?

13 points by de6u99er ↗ HN
I really don’t understand what I’m paying the premium price for with my Google Pixel. The constant ads, especially in apps like YouTube, are incredibly frustrating. I expected a smooth, ad-free experience, but instead, I’m bombarded with ads at every turn. The same or even better hardware is available at a much lower price, without these interruptions. So, what exactly am I paying extra for? Better performance? It doesn’t seem like it when my phone experience is constantly disrupted by ads.

13 comments

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davydm
You're paying for good hardware without all the vendor bloatware that the rest of us get. My pixel 5 died the other day and I replaced it with a Redmi note 13, and I miss the pixel. The Redmi, like other phones I've experienced, took a few days to stop sucking at performance, I guess that's how long the crapware took to settle down - my pixel was fast from the get-go.

Your primary mistake, though, is thinking that buying a phone from Google entitles you to premiums services on that phone. This is an invalid supposition.

If you want no YouTube ads, buy premium (and enjoy YT music as part of it). Or use a client like newpipe.

not_your_vase
I don't think the OP thinks he should get premium service because it's from Google. He feels he is entitled to premium service because of the pile of money they ask for the phone.

But basically the price-multiplier between redmi and google are justified with the first 3 days of ownership, when the redmi is slower?

I agree with OP. This doesn't sound like a particularly cromulent argument.

wruza
I’ve worked with quite a few mi/redmi for a project and even owned one (for a while) and never experienced the described few-days settling period. They just worked without any slowdowns. I literally set up a few new phones a day and put it into work. I guess gp describes some sort of misconfig or otherwise irregular behavior.

It was a couple years ago though, software could change.

Anyways, paying a shitload of money and getting ads in your face every few minutes or every other tap is unjustified. But that is android’s nature, honestly what did OP expect? That google will save them from itself? I’d buy a decent non-android instead.

walterbell
More secure hardware, when combined with GrapheneOS, which has more support for network filtering (e.g. NetGuard) and ad blocking.
reify
I am no tech bro, I am just an old retired bloke who enjoys using tech exactly how I want it to be.

I HAVE NO ADS ON MY PHONE.

How is this, that an old non techy can manage this seemingly difficult task.

First, I change. the DNS settings on my Pixel 4A and my families and friends phones.

Mullvad provides this as a free service for anyone not using their VPN.

I use the family filter on our phones: There are others.

family.dns.mullvad.net

https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls

secondly I install, either a Lineage or E/OS rom on our phones. Some of my family still use google apps so they prefer the E/OS roms which has microG.

easy peasy, no ads

wruza
Doesn’t that lock you out of banking apps?
coldtrait
The only reason I am still using an Android is that I can bypass a lot of ads using somewhat questionable loopholes.
solardev
Pixels don't give you ad-free access to other Google services. Not sure where that belief came from.

It DOES give you:

- A phone without crapware and bloat from other manufacturers

- Pretty darned good voice and text spam blocking (the robot answers for you and screens calls)

- Regular updates

- Decent cameras

- (On any Android) Adguard removes a lot of ads, though not in YouTube unless you "share" each video to its special player app.

If you don't care about those, don't get a Pixel. For me it's simply the lack of bloat and the spam blocking that keeps me on Pixel. I tried an iPhone for a month and the spam was so bad I had to switch back.

cyberhunter
In my opinion, Pixel phones don't have system-wide ads. You should compare them to iOS or other Android systems. iOS also doesn't have system ads, but if you use Xiaomi or Huawei in China, you'll find plenty of ads in built-in apps like the browser or weather app. They might even add ads to apps that were originally ad-free, and that's what I'd call system ads.

As for YouTube, it's not a built-in part of the operating system. It's like using Spotify: if you want an ad-free experience, you need a premium subscription or a modified version.

nextos
A Pixel is great to use GrapheneOS, i.e. Android sans Google.

For stock or nearly stock Android, other options are more cost-effective.

talldayo
> The constant ads, especially in apps like YouTube

Install NewPipe or you're a square

01jonny01
use skipvids.com instead of youtube
jotux
>The same or even better hardware is available at a much lower price, without these interruptions.

What phone is better and cheaper without ads in apps?