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Things I'd like to ask the author: The problem has only gotten worse in the last 3 years, from what I've seen. Has the adtech industry gotten larger in the mea

• jazzyjackson 8y ago
  Not the author, but ad tech is making more money than ever, so I can only surmise that they're pushing more traffic and tracking more users. That is, after all, how they make money. IMO as a lowly developer surrounded by data scientists, the mass intake of user data (the less anonymous the better!) only served as a canvas to paint data-massaged-stories onto to make presentations to clients of how effective their advertising has been, and that they should definitely renew their contract, because numbers don't lie! Don't get me wrong, there are some really talented statisticians developing new analysis techniques to track what a person does after being exposed to a message -- but that knowledge is probably used more effectively by intelligence agencies than the marketing managers trying to snag their next big client. My impression is that the more data they collect, the more it becomes clear that advertising didn't make a meaningful difference in purchase habits. Anything to the contrary is funny numbers made up by the people who sell advertising. I think the industry will implode someday, but its just a gut feeling. Nothing scientific ;)