[busymom0]

I updated my comment with a screenshot:

https://i.imgur.com/64sP9yh.jpg

My iCloud account isn't new. It's many years old. The device I have is old but only 3 months old. I bought it from someone else and it's still under warranty so maybe that's why.

> I believe the difference between "there will be random ads here" and "you bought a thing, this is what you get with it for free if you want it, or you can remove it and never see it again as a normal option" is pretty big.

That's a fair point. I do notice Apple going in the wrong direction though. Even the "search" tab in the App Store now shows ads for random apps (before doing a search). That's fairly odd.

[oneplane]

For the store I sort-of understand it, it's a store after all, the only purpose is to extract money from customers (in exchange for services/goods), and with a non-physical store the only real distinction you can make is how high at the top of a list your product sits. That said, I don't really use it that often anymore as I already have all the apps I want or need. Perhaps also why I tried the arcade a while back but didn't really end up using much of it for long.

[vulcan01]

> Even the "search" tab in the App Store now shows ads for random apps (before doing a search). That's fairly odd.

The random searches I've seen always have to do with my previous searches in that box. I think this is probably a case of Apple not having a good App Store search suggestion engine. (This happens in the Podcasts app as well.)

[oneplane]

Maybe they screwed themselves over like having:

  - normal search for the list of apps that exist
  - paid search positioning on top of that
  - previous searches you made
  - suggested results just for you

and then somehow blending that into a bad list of search results. (this is just a crappy guess on my part)

On one hand I don't care all that much, on the other hand I know there are people that do go browsing the store looking for new stuff to try out, and using search seems to be the only reasonable way to go looking for things with so many apps being available.