I have a sense that this is the dirty little secret of the spyware advertising industry, personalization just isn't that great. Yeah, putting you into a male or female bucket, parent or child, homeowner or renter, that's worth a little bit. But, to find out your name and address and search history and how long your last bowel movement took, just to deliver an ad that's theoretically hyper-optimized to make you buy something... I just don't believe it.
I don't believe that it's worth anything near what they are charging for it, except perhaps in the case of politics, which has always been an extremely efficient use of money. And even then, it's not worth a tiny fraction of the real cost it has to society.
I don't believe that it's worth anything near what they are charging for it, except perhaps in the case of politics, which has always been an extremely efficient use of money. And even then, it's not worth a tiny fraction of the real cost it has to society.