>a steady stream plastic goods made overseas, eventually to be discarded in landfills.

I don't know what ads your kids are getting but with the possible exception of the "Wish App" ads (which I fervently wish would die a fiery death at the very heart of the sun), most of the ads pitched to my kids are hawking digital ephemera of some sort or another.

If your kid is hooked to youtube, you have a bit more control than than a parent in the 90s whose kid was hooked to cartoons. Today you could opt out of all advertisements by paying Youtube or installing an ad blocker. That said, I'm not sure you can block channels that are entirely ads, like unboxing channels.

"I imagine it's hard for busy parents to police the commercials the children sees"

I'm less worried about the commercials (we pay for YT Premium so there's none of those) but more in YouTube's suggestion algorithm. I worry about one of my kids getting lost down one of those toxic rabbit holes.

> I imagine it's hard for busy parents to police the commercials the children sees

I hear things like this a lot. It's not hard, it just takes time. Is it hard to make that time? If it is too hard to make time to do something with your kids that you yourself think is important, you have to reconsider your priorities.

If you didn't plan appropriately, and decided to have kids before realizing the effort required, then you need to do some risk-reward analysis and determine which things you "have time" to pay attention to and which you don't.

> unwanted but hard to avoid space

Again, not hard, just time consuming. Time and interest will make sure your kids are well adjusted (well, at least as well adjusted as their parents).

Bah, all that pales comparison to Paw Patrol ip. They're the kings of selling shit towards kids. There was an article a month (WSJ or NYT) or so back that they crossed $1 billion for revenue this fiscal year. That and like Peppa Pig is somewhere around the $300mil marker. Think of this, Paw Patrol can walk up to the Cowboys NFL team (normally the highest grossing team from what I can find) and say "You're poor." And get away with it.

But I mean, hell, the Paw Patrol folks apparently don't say no to any licensing idea. Last weekend my buddy picked up Paw Patrol gardening gloves for his kid. Seriously... who would say "Yes, it makes perfect sense to put a children's tv character on gardening gloves and sell them in Lowes, next to all the actual, real gloves." And it worked.

Edit: grammar goof fix