To the extent that ads cause you to make purchases that you're retrospectively happy about, I agree. The limit case of a really good advertising system is a recommendation engine for arbitrary products, which is super useful. There are a few reasons why I think they don't converge to that though.
Different products have different margins that are uncorrelated with how useful they are to use, and this distorts the recommendations.
Advertising systems are competing to cause you to buy via them, and that causes them to expose you to more ads than your desire to purchase things would warrant.
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Notes -
To the extent that ads cause you to make purchases that you're retrospectively happy about, I agree. The limit case of a really good advertising system is a recommendation engine for arbitrary products, which is super useful. There are a few reasons why I think they don't converge to that though.
Different products have different margins that are uncorrelated with how useful they are to use, and this distorts the recommendations.
Advertising systems are competing to cause you to buy via them, and that causes them to expose you to more ads than your desire to purchase things would warrant.
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