We’ve just seen the Xiaomi Mi 8 Youth and Mi 8 Pro on their way to China. While this bit is directly related to Xiaomi, the world’s fourth smartphone vendor, it could very well represent a trend for budget phones. So, ask yourselves this question: how cheap should a phone be so you can put up with advertisements in the system?

Apparently, users or MIUI-powered Xiaomi phones (not those running Android One) are pretty upset. Unwanted ads are popping up everywhere, even in the Settings application. People complain about it on reddit. The company sent a statement to The Verge. It says:

Advertising has been and will continue to be an integral part of Xiaomi’s Internet services, a key component of the company’s business model. At the same time, we will uphold user experience by offering options to turn off the ads and by constantly improving our approach towards advertising, including adjusting where and when ads appear. Our philosophy is that ads should be unobtrusive, and users always have the option of receiving fewer recommendations”.

Granted, Xiaomi phones could get very cheap. However, users complain about no easy way in reducing or disabling said ads, intrusive or not. Xiaomi is not the only company that is using advertisements to compensate for the low price of hardware. Amazon has been using a similar approach on its Kindle, Fire tablets and Prime Exclusive phones.

This, of course, begs the question: would you pay extra to not see the unwanted ads? Or, how cheap should a phone be so you can put up with this?

Unwanted Ads