> I'm not sure I would consider the Netflix ones ads? They're not trying to convince you to buy additional things or otherwise give them money; they're telling you about shows you've already paid for that they think you might enjoy watching.

Encouraging me to consume more of what you're peddling is advertising, regardless of if I'm a customer of yours or not, or if I've consumed similar items before or not.

Sure, there's a reasonable argument to be made at a high level that it's all advertising. However, I think the GP is getting at something important. With enough granularity you can see a qualitative difference. Some of this advertising is only self-serving and some of it is in service to the customer.

When JetBrains gives me helpful tips on how to consume PyCharm, they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They want me to keep using PyCharm. However, it also serves me because it makes me more productive when I use PyCharm. When Netflix advertises to me that a new season of my favorite show is on Netflix, likewise: they want me to keep subscribing. But it also serves to help me get more value out of the subscription I've already purchased.

These activities contrast with the game developer using psychological tricks to get me to purchase in-game currencies at unreasonable rates that I otherwise wouldn't purchase.

There's a spectrum with fraud on one end, and, I don't know, something like genuinely helpful information on the other end. Likely different people will place any individual advertisement on a different place on the spectrum.

What I hate on Hulu is clicking to watch an epiode, getting a short network splash animation with sound, then getting a short promo for the show I'm about to watch, and THEN the show starts playing. These are not skippable and this is the paid ad-free subscription.