You make a good point, identity based marketing is, I think, fundamentally manipulative, whether the purchased product is physical or not. The "problem" is that

You make a good point, identity based marketing is, I think, fundamentally manipulative, whether the purchased product is physical or not. The "problem" is that it's just so damn effective. There's a void for identity sources (which one might claim was caused on purpose) and so anything that fits will be used to fill it. Then it's just a matter of effective propagation.