Comment by conductr
18 hours ago
That would be nice. However, It’s easy to see why it’s way more than simply what they want, they don’t really have a preference but it boils down to money. You’ll only replace your lawnmower every couple years and the rest of the time they’re guessing what you may buy next. By spying on your daily conversations and browsing, they have an idea of what you are likely to buy this week, next week, and the week after. This is so much more valuable to an advertiser.
Exactly. And here's where regulators come in. What we need to do as a society is basically say "Unless you can make your ad-funded business work with this tiny bit of information, your ad-funded business should fail and shut down".
Most of the ads are pushed via free services. Facebook, Google, as examples. These are entirely optional to consume. And I’m not sure people are really collectively willing to give up the trade they have yet (Data for free services).
I agree with you but really from a point of privacy and what/how data is allowed to be mined, shared, sold, etc. The implications to the business/ad industry are second order effects that are just collateral damage.