There are ads that I don’t mind. I’ve multiple times clicked on ads on Facebook and ended up actually buying stuff I’m happily using to this day (trousers, shoes, games…). On the other hand I don’t remember ever clicking on any Google ads, mostly because I adblock everywhere by default so I don’t even see them. On my work machine, where I don’t have adblock, Google ads are just plain stupid so it never even occurs to me.

What makes an ad okay for me? First and foremost be in context. If I’m watching for example a Critical Role episode on my phone (on the actual Youtube app) I wouldn’t mind being shown ads that are related: games, figures, DnD Beyond subscriptions… But instead I’m shown super annoying recruiting ads because I guess I happen to be in some target audience filter. Why am I shown ridiculous convenience store delivery ads in the middle of an Armin van Buuren track, when Google should definitely have a detailed profile of my interests?

On the other hand ads sometimes creep me out hard. Like the other day I was looking at keyboards on Amazon and Rakuten hoping to find some good Black Friday deal. Then the next day Youtube would recommend me a video about the same keyboard I was looking at. I don’t know which of the retailers ratted me out (ratailers?), but it’s all the more frustrating that none of the actual ads I’m shown on Youtube are relevant to anything. (And since I don’t really care about keyboards either, that recommendation went unclicked too.)

Another similar occasion was when I went to Toyosu Pit to see Gojira live, and the next day Facebook was showing me a huge promotion (that somehow slipped through the adblock) by the company that operates Toyosu Pit. I highly doubt that Google would tell Facebook I was there (I used Maps for navigation) competition and all, but then how did they know? Since I bought my ticket online with my email address, did the organizers sell that to Facebook? Extremely disturbing.