Extras are an interruption and self-promotion imposed on the customer (sometimes short-sightedly called a “user”).
This is also rightly called “an opinion”, and yes, you may choose to ignore the Extras if you wish.
Extras are not a vehicle of “self-promotion”. In fact, we had people asking for such a place to see activity from our site, including tips from the blog (almost 200 now!), new extras to install, recent releases, and obviously what sales or promotions may be running. In fact, any self-promotion is the smallest part of the entire sidebar.
Any interruptions can be silenced in the system’s Notification settings, also as you wish.