I like targeted ads (if I ignore the general threats to privacy and democracy they pose). There are certainly ads I've enjoyed seeing, mostly ads for specialized software, tools or machinery that I wouldn't have known about if not for targeted ads.
I still hate ads. Youtube has maybe five interesting, relevant ads a month it can show me, and I'm willing to see each one maybe twice. That's ten ads a month. But Youtube has hundreds of ad slots to fill every month if they want to show me two pre-roll ads before each video and a couple within the video. Those slots have to be filled with something, and the few relevant ads mostly get drowned by the garbage. Other platforms have the same problem.
Ads on the internet have fallen to the tragedy of the commons. If there was just a couple of them they would be more relevant and less distracting, but every advertiser and platform is incentivized to increase the number of ads without end, leading to where we are now.
If I listen to a software engineering podcast, isn’t “targeting” by the fact that I might be a software engineer good enough? The same is true for websites I visit. If I go to Mens Health, that’s a huge signal to what I’m interested in.
I still hate ads. Youtube has maybe five interesting, relevant ads a month it can show me, and I'm willing to see each one maybe twice. That's ten ads a month. But Youtube has hundreds of ad slots to fill every month if they want to show me two pre-roll ads before each video and a couple within the video. Those slots have to be filled with something, and the few relevant ads mostly get drowned by the garbage. Other platforms have the same problem.
Ads on the internet have fallen to the tragedy of the commons. If there was just a couple of them they would be more relevant and less distracting, but every advertiser and platform is incentivized to increase the number of ads without end, leading to where we are now.