I remember unboxing my first Poco. The plastic peel was satisfying. The specs were blistering. For a moment, looking at that price tag, I felt like I had pulled off a heist. How were they making money on this?
Then I opened the File Manager. Boom. An ad for a shady loan app stared back at me.
That’s when the penny dropped. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is certainly no such thing as a “flagship killer” without a catch. If you own a Redmi, Poco, or Xiaomi, you aren’t just a customer. You’re the product.
Most users know the ads exist. But few people realize just how deep the rabbit hole goes. I’ve spent the last week fighting my own phone’s operating system, and here is what I found.
1. It’s Not Greed. It’s a Trap.
The ads aren’t a mistake. They aren’t a sloppy afterthought by a lazy developer. They are the entire point.
Xiaomi has a rule that sounds incredibly noble on paper: they capped their hardware profit margin at 5%. Forever. They literally promised not to make too much money on the physical phone in your hand. Why? Because they don’t see themselves as a hardware manufacturer. They aren’t Apple. They aren’t Samsung.
They are an internet company disguised as a phone maker.
Think of your phone like a razor handle. Gillette will sell you the handle for pennies because they know they’ve got you hooked on the blades for life. Xiaomi sells you the hardware at rock-bottom prices—barely breaking even—so they can monetize your attention for the next three years. The phone is just the Trojan Horse.
2. You Can’t Buy Your Way Out
This is the part that really grinds my gears.
Amazon pulls a similar stunt with their Kindle “Special Offers.” They sell you a cheaper device with ads on the lock screen. But Amazon gives you an escape hatch: pay the difference, and the ads vanish. It’s a transaction. Fair enough.
Xiaomi offers no such deal.
I looked. I tried. There is no “Pro” subscription to kill the bloatware. There is no toggle you can buy. Whether you are a student trying to save money or a power user who just wants a clean interface, the answer is the same: No. The ads are not a “lite” tier feature. They are the marrow of the operating system.
3. The “Kill Switch” They Don’t Want You to Find
You don’t have to take it lying down. There is a weapon you can use, but they’ve buried it deep in the settings menu, under layers of bureaucratic jargon.
It’s called MSA.
That stands for “MIUI System Ads.” It’s the command center for the entire ad operation. Revoking its access is the single most effective thing you can do to reclaim your device. But don’t expect it to be easy.
Here is how I killed it on my HyperOS device:
- Settings > Fingerprints, face data, and screen lock.
- Authorization & revocation.
- Find MSA and flip the switch.
Here is the kicker: When you try to turn it off, the system forces you to wait 10 seconds. It makes you stare at a countdown, subtly implying you are making a mistake. It’s a dark pattern designed to make you hesitate. Don’t. Wait it out. Kill it.
4. Whac-A-Mole in the App Drawer
I wish I could tell you that killing MSA fixed everything. It didn’t.
Turning off the main switch only stops the system-level injections. It does nothing for Xiaomi’s army of pre-installed zombie apps. The Music app? Ads. The Security app? Ads. The File Manager? You guessed it.
I had to go into every single one of these apps manually. I felt like a janitor cleaning up a mess I didn’t make.
- File Manager: On the new HyperOS, they removed the “Recommendations” toggle. I had to hunt down a setting called “Withdrawal of consent” to shut it up.
- Themes: Buried in the user profile.
- Security: Hidden behind the “Cleaner” definitions.
It’s a game of Whac-A-Mole. You smash one ad, and another pops up in the Downloads folder. It is exhausting, and it is designed to be. They are banking on you being too lazy to fight back.
5. The ₹1 Lakh Insult
This is where the “value proposition” argument falls apart.
If I buy a Poco C51 for ₹5,000, I expect some compromises. I get it. The ads are subsidizing the hardware. That’s the deal with the devil I signed.
But Xiaomi doesn’t just sell cheap phones. They sell the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. That is a ₹99,998 device. It costs as much as a used car. And guess what? It runs the same ad-riddled software as the cheap stuff.
Imagine buying a Mercedes S-Class, turning on the ignition, and having to listen to a 15-second spot for insurance before you can put it in drive. You’d riot. Yet, we accept this from smartphone manufacturers.
So, look at your phone. Really look at it. It’s a marvel of engineering, sure. But ask yourself: Is it really yours? Or are you just renting the screen space from a landlord who checks in every time you open your music player?