> Building those tools in-house or not using interest-based advertising would make those websites economically not viable. Interest-based advertising is a huge

> Building those tools in-house or not using interest-based advertising would make those websites economically not viable. Interest-based advertising is a huge con, and in my opinion an egregious waste of energy doing all the data processing, an affront to people’s privacy, and has spent decades now distracting people who could be working on things with actual value. Sure, you can track my every move on the internet and burn vast amounts of energy analysing that data to say “this is someone with disposable income who likes technology”, or you could just… advertise directly on the sites I frequent, and on YouTube channels I watch. The “targeted” ads I’m exposed to are invariably utterly irrelevant to me anyway. I had a recent spate of adverts for head of department teaching jobs in Dubai… I’ve never taught in my life, and I’ve got no idea what got interpreted as wanting to move to the Middle East. I doubt it will happen, but I’d love nothing more than advertisers to stop drinking the kool-aid on targeted ads.