I would consider the first one to be an ad, but you could disable it and it seems to have only rolled out to a small number of users for a short period of time because it's hard to find many instances of this existing. It's certainlynot on my machone. Yet, you'll probably still see people complain about this. The windows team can't remove something they already have.

The second I would not consider an ad, but an upsell.

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Hizonner 16 hours ago | parent [-]

An upsell is a FUCKING AD and has no business existing, period.

Nothing should appear on a user's screen that doesn't add value for what the user is trying to get done. This is really, really simple. If you are Microsoft, and you are thinking about whether something should appear on the screen, you should be thinking "Does this advance the user's goals?". If you are instead thinking "Does this advance Microsoft's goals?", then you are doing it wrong.

The same applies to automagically configuring everything to use the cloud (good for Microsoft, usually bad for the user). And, as a special case of that, requiring the user to use a cloud-based account to log into their own local computer.

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charcircuit 16 hours ago | parent [-]

Cloud storage, and office suite software, does add value to what users are trying to get done with their computer.

The definition of ad you are using is not the common usage. For example if someone asked if ChatGPT had ads they would most likely say no, despite it upselling the subscription.

	▲	hombre_fatal 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If they were in the OneDrive app in that screenshot, I’d agree with you. But they aren’t.