What's ironic is that OP seems to work for an audit trail organization.
Another way I've done similar things in the past is soft-deletion (if required in the first place) of immutable data; A done deal, finished transaction. A paid-for seat reservation in this example.
And hard-deletion of runtime data. Temporary lock on seats are only relevant right now and don't serve any long-term purpose more than a log of the event.
> Basic human right is not to sell your soul for pennies
100% this.
And pennies is what these ads pay the company when you watch them anyways. Honestly, I would rather have a data plan that I could top up by paying them these ad pennies directly than watch YET ANOTHER ad - I get enough of those everywhere else.
Plus I for one liked the cute sound effects and didn't even think about the music as something unusual.