> I would define ads as promoting other businesses' products, as you would see on YouTube etc.
They do that, they call them "quests". Companies pay them to promote their product/service and users get rewards for doing a task (like playing a game, watching a video, etc.) https://discord.com/ads/quests
Upselling is basically just unlocking additional features. If you object to that, then you're objecting to the freemium model, not to "ads".