I feed them misinformation frequently
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
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Most times I specifically Google the specifications of something I want to buy they can't even show me just things that fit that. I even tried Amazon's AI thing and it couldn't do it. I had to scroll through 3-4 pages of wrong things before I found what I wanted. If all this data collection is for ads they are really shitty at it.
The idea is not to sell you what you need. It is developed to sell you stuff you actually don't need. It is by design.
When I (rarely) browse without an ad blocker, I notice how much better contextual ads (ads based on the site I am looking at) are compared to personalized ads. For example, on Board Game Geek shows ads for board games, board game accessories, and board game storage solutions. On webcomics I will see an ad for another webcomic that targets a similar audience. Both types of ads are genuinely interesting to me and I click on them on occasion.
When I see "personalized" ads, they are for things I have absolutely no interest in. On a tech news site, I get an ad for hair conditioner (I have short hair and losing it). On a 3d printing site, I am sold t-shirts with pro-police slogans (the fact that I regularly visit lemmy should automatically mark me as a bad target for the product).
It's not about what they think you might like. It's about what they think they can convince you to buy (or at least change your mind about).
It's never been about "improving your experience" to offer personalised ads.
Amazon started showing me ads for appliances and I’m worried they know something about my washing machine that I don’t.
Probably someone connected to you has been searching for appliances.
Often that's how they guess you're in the market.
Or they might just know you got a raise, are more of an impulse buyer in August or that one of your machines is nearing a possible end of life date.
Time to watch repair videos in advance!
Puts on tinfoil hat
There's a good chance Amazon has been inside your house and inspected your washing machine without your knowledge or consent...
Is the Amazon in the room with us right now?
The problem is the ones with all the data have no real use for it.
Google, Facebook, etc. tell you they have data, sell you the ad, run the ad on their own site, then tell you how well the ad did, but not in absolute terms. All in a black box. They don't actually have to use their data, as they're the ones grading their own work, they can just flaunt it to get buyers onboard.
They have plenty of uses for it.
Just because you're not buying the tjing in the ad doesn't mean it has no effect on you.
I work in advertising, I know, it's just that in the industry it's pretty well known that Google, Facebook etc. hugely overinflate their numbers as they arbitrarily decide that it definitely did have an effect on you to make their systems look better
Oh. Yeah they aren't efficient with the power they exercise, they just hoard so much of it.
Me to any advertiser that slips through my defenses: YOU DON"T KNOW ME!
Me - Buys one hairdryer
ADs for the next 3 weeks - HEY DO YOU WANT A HAIRDRYER!
How many hairdryers do they think a gal buys??!!
10-15 years ago:
Me: Buys a gaming PC
Ads: Here's a local pizza delivery service. Want to order?
Fine, somewhat related at least.
Today:
Me: Buys a gaming PC
Ads: what about this gaming PC? Or that one? Maybe this upgrade kit (worse specs than what I bought) is interesting? Like this PSU/CPU/RAM/graphics card/...? Hot gamer singles in your area want to...
Ah, fuck Off!
I once purchased floor mats for my specific car brand. Years ago. For months it tried selling me new floor mats for every brand of car in the world. I still occasionally get an email asking if I want floor mats for cars I've never owned. Like I'm the mat collector or some shit.
They don’t know, but they’re going to shoot their shot.
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I washed my car this weekend and Amazon suggested more soap on sale... Jokes on you, I ain't washing that car again for the next 6 months
Edit: I replied to the wrong person
Edit: let me introduce you to Edith!
Legendary creature secretary
Tap: Change the text of any comment.
Do you wash your car every 6 months? You've gotta be rich! I wash my car only when I can't recognize it by its color anymore.
I wash my car every time it rains!
I wanna be like the dude/gal at my college, who left their car parked under a tree for so long it became bird-poop colored.
My vehicle gets washed when it rains, and I live in the US southwest.
I know I'm winning when it serves an ad in a language I don't speak
I get a lot of those. They also think I'm all types of colors and genders while having different sexual preferences.
For the last few weeks YouTube has been serving me ads for ladies Gillette razors. My Google profile shows I'm a 41 year old straight male. Most ads are totally not relevant but this one is.... out there.
they're acting like you have extra money to spend or something, they should know better
Like they are spending their money, and not advertisers’
You guys see ads? 😬
Making people think that seeing ads that interest them is a concession from the ad industry, to the point that people actively try to help advertisers sell more effectively to them by opting in to it, is the greatest piece of bullshittery I've ever seen in all of human history. I've never seen a more successful grift before or since. Jeffrey Epstein's blackmail scheme involving the world's billionaires has nothing on this reprehensible shit. You gotta admire it, despite it being pure unadulterated evil, regardless of whether or not it's actually effective in the end. The fact remains, we accepted this hilariously-transparent con into our lives with open arms and actually complain when it's not performing well enough.
I agree with the sentiment (ads blocked in so many ways here).
However, people are looking to buy things and ads do work. I used to discover cool products and go to cool events I found because of ads and algorithms.
But I swear I haven't seen anything worth buy for years before I went full anti-ad. Its all temu drop shipped garbage and AI cheating tools now. I don't even get hot singles like the good old days!
The products I can find on my own. I just need an ad to tell me that the type of product exists (I'm aware that only monopolies would benefit from that kind of as).
I'll be choosing the model/brand on merit. If anything the one being heavily advertised is going to be worse (or at least the cost of the ads is included in the price).
I'd agree with that use of ads.
Hell, my last laptop purchase was because of an ad, but I bought a totally different company's laptop.
Marketing is all about explaining why it's a good thing that your campaign have negative ROI and about taking credits for things that would happen even without the ads. The rest is hype.
I am convinced that about one-half the money I spend for advertising is wasted, but I have never been able to decide which half. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/04/11/advertising/
Personally, it has always struck me that half is wildly optimistic. Still, (frustratingly) it seems the case that some marketing is correlated with some success in business.
But that's it, correlation. Giants with overwhelming distribution also have overwhelming marketing spent. And tons of leverage over smaller copetitors and parters that can be use to abuse them. There is a fairly good evidence that marketing works at awareness phase - as long as you need to inform people that you exist, it works. Once you pass this threshold marketing increase the sales, but not on the rate that justify the cost. Every natural experiment (when the ads were not launched by accident in some region or chanell) suggest brands like Coca-cola are loosing money on their marketing. It's a chinken game mixed with the king is naked game, where no one want to be a guy who say "maybe you pay us too much". Aka bubble.
And this is why I blew up in the YouTube feedback and moved to NewPipe
Targeted ads worked much better when they were about the page you were looking at.
That’s contextual advertising, and they can still do it without being blocked because it can be hosted directly on the site - but they don’t.
i hate eggs and regularly type/say that and always get ads for eggs
Must love eggs with how many times they type the word eggs!
I kinda like it when they recommend something I have no interest in, or even don't know what the heck the thing is. I figure that is confirmation of how little they know.
I bought myself anew mirror for my bathroom and anew shower head and I’ve been getting countless ads for beauty products and treatments to look better and feel sexy. FYI I’m a 42 year old man that’s on the chubby side… really helping me out with my low self esteem there algorithm…😐
Ah, no problem. They are also selling your data to companies planning to replace you at work and companies doing automatic target-determination for military all over the world.
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