Your basic theory of "app developer wants me to like the app" is flawed. They don't want you to like the app, just to watch as much ads as possible. And since they get more money if you click the ad, the X has to be extra small. But they cannot remove the X since guidelines say they have to provide a way to close the ad without interacting with it.
Mildly Interesting
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
Why don't you stop playing f2p games? There are proper games from reputable developers.
I would prefer to believe it's the latter, but it may also be a design choice that merely reflects a general disdain for the user, rather than being motivated by actual greed or cynicism
Hanlons Razor.
You wouldn't think of having disdain for your source of income as blatant stupidity?
They are using it to lie about the clickthrough rates
This is why I have like 4 apps specifically designed to strip out the built in ads of other apps.
Doesn't Pi-Hole exist for this sole reason?
That requires spending money buying hardware. Why do that when I can do it for free?
Oh, they know you hate it, and they're currently thinking of new techniques that will piss you off even more.
They still get paid.
Good way for me not to care even a pixel of these games.