[locopati]

I mean, the Stasi was pretty bad. Soviet political prisons were pretty bad. I'll take advertising as the cost of doing business if that's the alternative.

[JetSpiegel]

But is it? Was the Stasi responsible for the lack of advertisements?

I would argue it's completely orthogonal. You can selective adopt other cultural practices. Resistance to advertising does not imply mass surveillance, it's actually the opposite.