Yeah, look, the only reason we cant 100% fully customize everything about the homescreen is so they can control the ads. Every single discussion about the homescreen always boils down to what do we do about the ads.
At this point I wont be surprised if it played a 30 second add when you launched the damn thing, directly conflicting with all the marketing about how fast it booted in the beginning.
I like phil spencer as much as the next guy and im sure these kinds of decisions arent up to him but these guys arent our friends and they will market to us whenever they can.
Even those people are probably misguided, uneducated or scared.