Just feels crazy to me, but I guess that's what addiction looks like.
Purchasing upon ads is the opposite. Trading dollars (and freewill) for time (along with painkiller to having to have personal taste)
Sure some stuff sticks but most falls off the wall and is axed barely half way into the product life cycle.
Pepole around me don't even know what google is doing besides search and probably maps.
I'm the person with an adblocker, the others are not.
Who is Googles target audiance? Its not me. I might only be a target for when i run some IT Platform in my work as an architect.
I think this is an easy question to answer: 1. what's your monthly ad spend? 2. how many ads did you view lasy week? You're probably not their target.
If you're not failing often, you're not an innovative company.
This has always been the way Google has worked. This is why they are literally the most successful company in the history of the world.
They also have failures, then again most companies have failures as well at all points in the product cycle.
Failures like YouTube, GMail and Android?
Normies HATE customizing their devices. Children will literall reach for AI instead of search engines when they just want to change a background image.
Jailbreak is a slur for "Installation" that tech companies want to keep that way.
If I need to buy something new in order feel like I'm having 'fun', then I try to ask 'why' as many times as necessary to work out what hole I'm actually trying to fill, or what scratch I'm trying to itch. There are a couple of second hand items I want to buy off Gumtree, but I have no immediate need for them, they'd be for some future situation that's more likely than not to be only theoretical. Knowing that they are there, available, makes me want them, rather than some actual existing purpose.
> to find out about new things to buy.
I would interpret this as "to find out why I should feel unhappy and empty that I don't own these things".
On things that look nice, yes, I've got some nice art, but there's a limited amount of space in which to put up nice looking things, and if you're buying them frequently then you're either throwing out a lot or you're having to store a lot. Additionally, I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks remotely nice advertised on the Internet; or at least looks nice and isn't, in actuality, mass-produced shit that's been polished up.
Having said that, if I had more money to throw away I'd do up my study like an old-school English manor-house library, full matching bookshelves, wainscoting, desk and chair. That's purely 'looks nice' and I would throw away the patchwork that currently furnishes my study. I'll say that's been advertised to me through (un)intentional 'product placement' in movies and TV shows, rather than Internet advertising though.
I am a basic human being, however.
I think the problem with HN/Engineer types is they basically never see ads designed to appeal to them because they aren't a large enough audience.
To me that's like living in a transparent house where your landlord can always watch you but it's fine because you really like the nice showerhead.
(I hate ads too, but I think I understand the alternative perspective).
Even as a kid, me and all my friends used to groan when the commercial breaks came on. I've been muting commercials since I knew how to use a mute button.