Tech companies know everything about me – so why do they try to sell me so much rubbish? | Joel Snape
We live, as I’m sure someone’s chief growth officer has recently boasted on an earnings call, in a golden age for data capture. Jeff Bezos knows what I buy, read and watch; Mark Zuckerberg will be aware that I recently sold a car transport box for a medium-sized dog. I’ve been ruthlessly conditioned into clicking Accept All Cookies every time I want to check how much cumin my favourite chilli needs, and I simply accept that my washing machine is probably spying on me.
All of which raises the obvious question: with all of these terabytes of personal information available, why can’t advertisers try to sell me something I might actually like? Every time I swipe open my Kindle, for instance, I dismiss an advert for a bestselling trilogy called something like Ruthless Faerie Werewolves or Evil Mafia Hunk, even though I have never once – in my life – read a book where the main character could be described as a “morally grey shadow daddy”. I stopped watching Stranger Things after one season, and yet Netflix, which should know this better than anyone, has suggested the stage-play version to me so many times that I can recite its ad from memory. Amazon seems to have given up on predicting my needs and advertises the same one-off purchases that I’ve just bought, while Reddit and X want me to buy software products that I genuinely don’t understand.
Part of me is heartened by this: maybe I’m too dazzlingly individual to be defined by the things I click on. Another part is saddened: what would be better, after all, than being bombarded with recommendations for the sort of books I can never find enough of (micro-histories of things like cod, say, or AK-47s, or 19th-century navigation).
But a tiny part of me is desperately worried that the algorithm really does know me better than I know myself, and that I’m denying myself by refusing to heed its call. I’ll let you know, just as soon as I’m done with Mean Pixie Mob Daddy.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
No, Amazon, I do not want to buy another version of the thing I just bought, or any other random object I don’t recognise or understand. We live, as I’m sure someone’s chief…
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
We live, as I’m sure someone’s chief growth officer has recently boasted on an earnings call, in a golden age for data capture. Jeff Bezos knows what I buy, read and watch; Mark Zuckerberg will be aware that I recently sold a car transport box for a medium-sized dog. I’ve been ruthlessly conditioned into clicking Accept All Cookies every time I want to check how much cumin my favourite chilli needs, and I simply accept that my washing machine is probably spying on me.
All of which raises the obvious question: with all of these terabytes of personal information available, why can’t advertisers try to sell me something I might actually like? Every time I swipe open my Kindle, for instance, I dismiss an advert for a bestselling trilogy called something like Ruthless Faerie Werewolves or Evil Mafia Hunk, even though I have never once – in my life – read a book where the main character could be described as a “morally grey shadow daddy”. I stopped watching Stranger Things after one season, and yet Netflix, which should know this better than anyone, has suggested the stage-play version to me so many times that I can recite its ad from memory. Amazon seems to have given up on predicting my needs and advertises the same one-off purchases that I’ve just bought, while Reddit and X want me to buy software products that I genuinely don’t understand.
Part of me is heartened by this: maybe I’m too dazzlingly individual to be defined by the things I click on. Another part is saddened: what would be better, after all, than being bombarded with recommendations for the sort of books I can never find enough of (micro-histories of things like cod, say, or AK-47s, or 19th-century navigation).
But a tiny part of me is desperately worried that the algorithm really does know me better than I know myself, and that I’m denying myself by refusing to heed its call. I’ll let you know, just as soon as I’m done with Mean Pixie Mob Daddy.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
We live, as I’m sure someone’s chief growth officer has recently boasted on an earnings call, in a golden age for data capture. Jeff Bezos knows what I buy, read and watch; Mark Zuckerberg will be aware that I recently sold a car transport box for a medium-sized dog. I’ve been ruthlessly conditioned into clicking Accept All Cookies every time I want to check how much cumin my favourite chilli needs, and I simply accept that my washing machine is probably spying on me.
All of which raises the obvious question: with all of these terabytes of personal information available, why can’t advertisers try to sell me something I might actually like? Every time I swipe open my Kindle, for instance, I dismiss an advert for a bestselling trilogy called something like Ruthless Faerie Werewolves or Evil Mafia Hunk, even though I have never once – in my life – read a book where the main character could be described as a “morally grey shadow daddy”. I stopped watching Stranger Things after one season, and yet Netflix, which should know this better than anyone, has suggested the stage-play version to me so many times that I can recite its ad from memory. Amazon seems to have given up on predicting my needs and advertises the same one-off purchases that I’ve just bought, while Reddit and X want me to buy software products that I genuinely don’t understand.
Part of me is heartened by this: maybe I’m too dazzlingly individual to be defined by the things I click on. Another part is saddened: what would be better, after all, than being bombarded with recommendations for the sort of books I can never find enough of (micro-histories of things like cod, say, or AK-47s, or 19th-century navigation).
But a tiny part of me is desperately worried that the algorithm really does know me better than I know myself, and that I’m denying myself by refusing to heed its call. I’ll let you know, just as soon as I’m done with Mean Pixie Mob Daddy.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
- No, Amazon, I do not want to buy another version of the thing I just bought, or any other random object I don’t recognise or understand.
- We live, as I’m sure someone’s chief…