We actually have one of these in Dayton, Nevada. Half hour away from Carson City, hour from Reno, not much to speak of at all in the town really (other than some historical interests) but there's an entire subdivision with a golf course and a small airfield and "hangar homes".
OpenDNS used to do that. Caused a lot of unexpected problems, enough that I stopped using it entirely. I'm still hesitant to even though they've stopped doing it.
As your typical American I can only read English, what do those "news" ads say, roughly? Tinfoil hat nuttery? Increase your Pen-One-Five size?
Either way that's still pretty bad. And there are video popups? Jeez. I'm guessing you either don't have much choice in ISPs or the other options are even worse somehow. My sympathies. Also thanks for sharing.
Cigarettes != tobacco. Tobacco is an ingredient in cigarettes, and not the only one, not by a long shot. Literally dozens of additives are included in cigarettes, many of which are designed to make them more addictive.
Secondly, modern tobacco absolutely was "made" the way it is, first through selective breeding and then genetic modification to (among other things) increase Nicotine content. Much in the same way that modern weed is far stronger than the stuff grown 50 years ago, so too is tobacco.
I was already considering switching over to kbin fully just because they're set up to interact with both Lemmy instances and Mastodon. Unfortunately the Mastodon side still feels a bit janky, but I'm hoping that'll change as time goes on.
Definitely not going to stay with an instance that pre-emptively bends over for corporate interests. That's one of the biggest reasons why I'm shifting away from Reddit in the first place.