[ehnto]

Mercs and BMWs occupy the same market space. They are direct competitors.

Mercedes may have a car or two that reaches just out of upper middle class but they are largely a middle to upper middle class brand, just like BMW.

The fact that Merc would do it too just means they are both happy cheapening their brand to align with practices of cheap off-brand android TVs.

[dash2]

Actually Apple will also put advertising on your phone if you have one of the dynamic carousel things and you walk into the wrong area.

[microtonal]

They put advertising in:

- The Settings: Apple Intelligence and Apple Fitness+ (including the red dot as if you missed something important).

- The app store. Typically 1/2 or 2/3 of the search page is covered by ads.

- Apple Wallet. They rolled out an F1 advertisement to Apple Wallet in some region.

- iWork apps now have advertisements for updating to an Apple Creator Studio subscription.

- Apple Maps will soon have ads.

Most restraint is gone now to grow the Services category. It just feels gross for flagship devices. It seems that AOSP ROMs like GrapheneOS are the only road to sanity.

[eps]

Mercedes is famously a company with the widest range of models, from entry-level budget cars to high-end luxury ones. It's basically their MO.

[ehnto]

That describes almost every major auto company though. Some companies sell their luxury lines through different badging or different branding but it's the same line up. Even Nissan has a luxury line. If you want a 500k BMW you can do that too.