In the long distant past I did a stint in TV, dealing with people that sell commercial space during breaks. They could tell you how likely someone was to take o

In the long distant past I did a stint in TV, dealing with people that sell commercial space during breaks. They could tell you how likely someone was to take out a loan suggested to them during an individual slot on an particular channel, and actively cultivated such audiences to increase revenues. At that point I decided to get out. It's been saddening to watch this approach spread out of the old media world and take over so much of the tech industry. (See also the Atlantic article on the front page now).