I really want to emphasize that advertising is a potent form of exploiting human psychology. The advanced and pervasive form of it we see today, where it is tailored to individuals and consistently assaults them using a level of knowledge that many people’s loved ones wouldn’t even have access to is tantamount to abuse.
If a friend or a partner kept careful notes of your behavior, where you were looking and for how long, what you tended to buy and when based on your surrounding behavior and mood, and used it to manipulate you, we would rightfully call such a person a dangerous abuser. It is absolutely abhorrent to accept that from strangers who also already have massive structural power over us.
Not just what you buy, but what you search, what items you look at on other websites, and correlating data with demographic information that is either “lying around” or supplemented with targeted surveys to fill out the profile.
human attention is a finite resource. what does capitalism call those? externalities. what does it do with them? carves them up and destroys them for profit.
I really want to emphasize that advertising is a potent form of exploiting human psychology. The advanced and pervasive form of it we see today, where it is tailored to individuals and consistently assaults them using a level of knowledge that many people’s loved ones wouldn’t even have access to is tantamount to abuse.
If a friend or a partner kept careful notes of your behavior, where you were looking and for how long, what you tended to buy and when based on your surrounding behavior and mood, and used it to manipulate you, we would rightfully call such a person a dangerous abuser. It is absolutely abhorrent to accept that from strangers who also already have massive structural power over us.
When some smug Redditor says “IF YOU DONT LIKE IT DONT BUY IT, SIMPLE” they’re expressing an internalized defeated acceptance of that exploitation.
Not just what you buy, but what you search, what items you look at on other websites, and correlating data with demographic information that is either “lying around” or supplemented with targeted surveys to fill out the profile.
Also what all your friends like as well thanks to facebook/twitter/instagram/tiktok social network ad targeting
I searched ebay on my desktop for something the other day and my partner started seeing ads for it on her Instagram.
Yikes, is your ebay account linked to Facebook/Google or using Google chrome?
I went and turned off all the cookie sharing.
human attention is a finite resource. what does capitalism call those? externalities. what does it do with them? carves them up and destroys them for profit.
Removed by mod
Let’s not use ableist language, please.
Oh no…