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After the 9274821th article about yet another company hoovering up data about me to help someone run personalized ads, I am less frightened about the privacy im

After the 9274821th article about yet another company hoovering up data about me to help someone run personalized ads, I am less frightened about the privacy implications than morbidly curious at the mammoth, grotesque waste of it all. I have to ask: how much of the American economy is now based on showing people ads? Is there no limit to how much money and time and effort civilization can sink into this? Even if ads could control me like a puppet and direct me to make purchases at any time, would the proceeds from that pay for the effort?

teeray 5y ago
Even if I do get a good targeted ad, I’m usually like “oh yeah, I bought that months ago” or “this would have been a good ad for me three years ago at ${PREVIOUS_JOB} where we actually used this service.” The targeting works, but the timing is abysmal and fails to introduce new products into my thought space at the time I’m making those decisions. In other words, they fail at their raison d'être
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  That's not true in the general case and I'm sure you could think of many counterexamples for this.
- tim333 5y ago
  I'm told facebook is quite good at getting the timing right. My friend used to sell fancy holidays via facebook ads and they seemed pretty good at figuring when the customers were thinking of booking a holiday. I feel a bit disconnected from the whole ads scene as my ad blockers are so good I really have little idea of what I'm missing! One of my problems with the holiday ads is they tend to push expensive hols with profit margin to spend on facebook ads whereas I tend to book the value for money stuff.
bjackman 5y ago
I've recently ordered this book which I believe deals with the topic of your question: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538651/subprimeattentioncrisis https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538651/subprimeattenti... Haven't read it yet, looking forwards to it!

teeray 5y ago

Even if I do get a good targeted ad, I’m usually like “oh yeah, I bought that months ago” or “this would have been a good ad for me three years ago at ${PREVIOUS_JOB} where we actually used this service.” The targeting works, but the timing is abysmal and fails to introduce new products into my thought space at the time I’m making those decisions. In other words, they fail at their raison d'être

AussieWog93 5y ago
That's not true in the general case and I'm sure you could think of many counterexamples for this.
tim333 5y ago
I'm told facebook is quite good at getting the timing right. My friend used to sell fancy holidays via facebook ads and they seemed pretty good at figuring when the customers were thinking of booking a holiday. I feel a bit disconnected from the whole ads scene as my ad blockers are so good I really have little idea of what I'm missing! One of my problems with the holiday ads is they tend to push expensive hols with profit margin to spend on facebook ads whereas I tend to book the value for money stuff.

bjackman 5y ago

I've recently ordered this book which I believe deals with the topic of your question: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538651/subprimeattentioncrisis https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538651/subprimeattenti... Haven't read it yet, looking forwards to it!