I know I'm not here as much as I would like, but I've only noticed the ads since the past week or two. Perhaps they started sooner and I was not using steemit as much (or if at all) compared to other UI's (like busy, which doesn't have ads).

Tbh, steemit.inc no longer needs to exist. They have got the ball rolling in terms of establishing the BC and now the rest is essentially up to the witnesses to take from here. Not that steemit.inc is just going to roll over and go away, but with all products, market needs and wants dictate winners and losers. I predict Steemit.com will be a loser. I wish I could suspect differently, but they haven't shown me anything to think otherwise. There are hungrier entrepreneurs here doing their thing with many less resources and providing a much better UI that steemit has. I have no qualms with whatever they do to keep their lights on, but at the slight expense of the majority of peoples reasons to come here seems baffling to me, but it was their call. It'll be interesting for sure to see in a few years how it all pans out.

As for other UI's, I use Busy on my desktop (fortunate to have one :)) and Partiko on my cell phone for quick comments and browsing. I'm typing this from Busy...not sure if they have an app or not, I would gander they do but Partiko has been great and I love the notifications; something Steemit seriously lacks. I wouldn't say your behind the curve, simply because you are here. You are part of a few thousand that even know what STEEM is. That puts you ahead of the curve by a long shot.

it’s always a pleasure to read your work.

That means a lot, thank you. I felt the same reading your last article which was the reason for the resteem. Glad to see blocktrades caught whiff of it ;)