> To sell ads, websites need to be able to show what demographics of people… Wasn't Google's initial pitch that it would provide ads selectively based on the c

> To sell ads, websites need to be able to show what demographics of people… Wasn't Google's initial pitch that it would provide ads selectively based on the content of the page? All this demographics and individual tracking part in modern metrics seems to be mostly misleading. For decades, ads were sold based on media analysis – and it worked well. There is nothing that says that it would work unconditionally with tracking only. You may even miss your most important potential customers entirely with tracking, since your product may be lacking general exposure. You may be also missing a broader cultural feedback, which is what sells most products in the end. (Most ads try to assign a cultural vector to the product, or to associate a product with an existing one, this is a major mechanism. You may require a certain amount of social resonance and common references to achieve this. It may well be, that this dysfunctionality of targeted advertising is what gave birth to the phenomenon of the influencer.)