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Google is not in the business of satisfying your content needs, though: they are in the business of making money by getting people to look at screens. This may
by notduncansmith 7y ago
Google is not in the business of satisfying your content needs, though: they are in the business of making money by getting people to look at screens. This may occasionally overlap with giving you what you’re looking for, but is by no means strictly linked.
- mcv 7y agoI was under the impression that they were in the business of targeted advertising. They want to know everything I do specifically to understand which ads are most effective to show to me. And effective here means: most likely to get me to click on them and buy something. So yes, showing me stuff I'm interested in should be pretty important to me. Knowing the difference between me and my son too. You can't effectively target ads if you're confused about who you're dealing with.
- notduncansmith 7y agoIt’s entirely possible that they make most of their money off of the top few percent of online spenders, who probably don’t need to be targeted that well to make most of the money that’s made online, hence not justifying an especially-honed targeting system. Plus, we’re in the beginning of the era where the data has far more lucrative and powerful uses than direct ad-matching, so again it may not be to their profit to invest heavily in that area. I don’t know Google’s economics obviously, but that’s my guess.