alt Hacker NewsTargeted advertising will never feel good, and it's not due to lack of information. Consider the following:
- People who know you very well (friends, family, spouse) often buy you bad gifts you need to pretend to be happy to receive.
- Ultimately, advertisers aren't _merely_ trying to find things you want. They're trying to get you to buy _their_ things. So someone selling (let's say) hamburgers might be savvy enough to avoid vegetarians, but after that how would they possibly narrow it down? Not everyone wants to try out a new burger place, or even cares about advertising when it comes to restaurant suggestions.
ie, they're trying to coerce you into wanting their products, and no amount of targeting can really fix that problem. Also, targeting is difficult.
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That's true for the advertising companies, but Google or whatever advertiser have a big stake in showing you the ad from the millions they serve that you're most likely to click/buy/complete. So there's no fault on McDonald's part, but if you're a vegetarian, arguably Google is doing McDonalds a disservice as their advertiser by showing you the ad (and won't be doing the user any useful service either).
That said, these algorithms are simple presumably because they work "well enough". Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, there isn't really a lot of meaningful competition in the ad space driving superior targeting. It's more about having the killer network, the list of effective channels (search, youtube, instagram whatever) that is the big players advantage rather than their targeting skills.
> ie, they're trying to coerce you into wanting their products
Im not sure if you mean “coerce” literally but if so this is overkill. Maybe “persuade” or to be more critical, “manipulate”?