To be fair:

1. I get a lot more value out of (some) Reddit threads than I get out of most online journalism, including Ars Technica, so I’m never surprised to see really bad quality from journalism.

2. I’ve had two Google displays in my home for over 5 years, and have never seen a single ad on mine (with default settings / no hacking). So it’s not that surprising (to me anyway) to see these reactions from customers (unless you already had higher expectations from Google vs. Amazon).