"I'm not sure why most people are okay with companies gathering tons of data about them and trying to use it to manipulate them into buying products they don't

"I'm not sure why most people are okay with companies gathering tons of data about them and trying to use it to manipulate them into buying products they don't actually want or need (among other uses), but I'm not one of them." It takes a ton of work to prevent it and it's more or less futile anyways. It's not so much that people are okay with this, rather it's a part of modern life and it's exhausting trying to mitigate it. And impulsively buying products due to ads is a personal failing.