We can agree on the ads part.
What counts as a distraction vs a feature is depending on the use case and perhaps how your brain works.
If you're trying to accomplish something like 'get quickly to that specific page', a way to quickly get to a list of thumbinals, to tap on it, would not be a distraction.
But if those thumbnails are always visible when you are just viewing the page, then it becomes a distraction.
If you have features that are perhaps hidden by default, but could be enabled in settings, you could allow the user to add the features they don't see as distractions.
