You're not wrong. But as you said yourself, this only applies to your own hardware. Some of us do engage in this weird thing called "going outside", with some taking it as far as not only going there to touch grass, but also meet other people (gross, I know).

In these situations, even I, an individual who has

• a private e-mail that is exactly that: private (through aliases and strict protocols as to who gets the root address)
• a physical mailbox mostly clean of ads because advertisers either do not get my address in the first place, or they get a friendly letter telling them where to shove their catalogues
• adblocker plugins in every browser
• hosts-based blocking on top of that and
• a network-wide DNS-based adblocker just for good measure,

even I, builder, king and prisoner of this privacy fortress, am exposed to ads when I occasionally leave it.

I see ads when my kid asks me to read out to him the contents of that colourful banner above the parking lot.

I see ads when I watch cable TV with my parents and they just let the ad break wash over them like a jovial stream of diarrhea.

I see ads when I go shopping and I cannot focus on my own thoughts because only a few metres away there's an ad screen loudly announcing the technological marvels of Buddy's Fully-automatic Butt Crack Scratcher to the world.

In these situations, I really feel the contents of that OP. I feel the brazen attempt to steal my attention when all I want is to be present. I feel the insult to my intelligence because some twat in marketing decided I'm unable to or unworthy of making my own decisions. And I feel the need to quell this frivolous invasion of my time and headspace.

And that's why, in these situations, I take the liberty to turn off the shop's TV while I'm there. I take my parent's remote, mute the ad diarrhea and strike up a conversation. And I promise the kiddo to read him something proper once we get home, but not one of those stupid ads.

(We recently pulled up in front of another giant ad banner, and the little guy went: "Dad, that's just another one of those stupid ads, right?" Imagine how proud dad was, seeing that another system-wide adblocker had been installed...)

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!