I opened Bloons TD the other day to play a quick round. 3 modals appeared before I could see the homescreen. Daily challenge banner. Season pass popup. Currency reward to claim. New event to dismiss. Upgrade pack offer. Settings nag. I closed the app without playing. It is a tower defense game. I wanted to place towers and pop bloons. That used to be the whole loop. Now the loop is wrapped in five other loops, and the original one is buried somewhere underneath. This is not a Bloons problem. This is every app I open. Banking app: a credit card promo before my balance. Streaming app: three rows of recommendations before search. Food delivery: a wall of paid placement before the restaurants I actually order from. Social app: a story tray, a creator subscription pitch, an explore feed, a "see what your friends are up to" prompt. The actual product is buried. The shell around it has eaten the product. The framing rotted. Engagement is the metric, not job-completed.…