Couldn't the same be said about manipulating a child or someone with a mental disorder? That you are tailoring the message to the recipient, that it's a smart strategy to get what you want?
I not really sure I like that analogy but what I'm trying to say is this: there is an information and power asymmetry. While one side has people working 40-hour weeks, using marketing techniques exploiting gaps in human attentiveness developed over generations, with machine learning algorithms crunching data on that person to find their most effective lever - at the other side of the table sits someone hapless and ignorant that they are the target of covert forces. No person, no matter how rational or smart or educated, can stand up to manipulation that they aren't informed about.
It's like calling sleeve cards a smart blackjack strategy. It is. It absolutely is. But the misgivings of the parent are't misgivings about the effectiveness of the strategy.
And to take it further, do we want businesses competing on who can manipulate customers into coming to them? Isn't the whole point of competition that businesses are supposed to try to make better and better products to attract business?
What you have today are identical products made overseas by child labor being sold by two stores, where the two stores compete on brand, labeling and customer advertising because at the root their product is identical. Is that optimally functioning Capitalism?
I not really sure I like that analogy but what I'm trying to say is this: there is an information and power asymmetry. While one side has people working 40-hour weeks, using marketing techniques exploiting gaps in human attentiveness developed over generations, with machine learning algorithms crunching data on that person to find their most effective lever - at the other side of the table sits someone hapless and ignorant that they are the target of covert forces. No person, no matter how rational or smart or educated, can stand up to manipulation that they aren't informed about.
It's like calling sleeve cards a smart blackjack strategy. It is. It absolutely is. But the misgivings of the parent are't misgivings about the effectiveness of the strategy.
And to take it further, do we want businesses competing on who can manipulate customers into coming to them? Isn't the whole point of competition that businesses are supposed to try to make better and better products to attract business?
What you have today are identical products made overseas by child labor being sold by two stores, where the two stores compete on brand, labeling and customer advertising because at the root their product is identical. Is that optimally functioning Capitalism?