[morgante]

> I would guess most people have this idea (in most cases illusion) that advertisers are not able to manipulate them.

I certainly don't pretend that advertising has no impact on me.

I also don't think I'm a mindless drone who does whatever advertisers say.

Advertising is not zero sum. It can be effective and good for the consumer. For example, I have Charles Schwab account because I once saw it in a magazine ad, did some research, and have been a happy customer ever since. Both Schwab and I won, even though they "manipulated" me into learning about their excellent offering.

> I do not have that illusion, and I do not like people that are manipulating me for their own benefit.

You should probably never leave your house then, because almost every person in the world is trying to (subtly) manipulate you. Manipulation isn't evil.

[nercht12]

Aren't you manipulating him into not leaving his house? /jt The kinds of ads Ad Block Plus allows will be interesting. With the push for analytics, enabling any ads may allow some crafty shnooks to manipulate the system and figure out your personal interests. It's fine to tell a person directly what you want, but it's annoying when they spy on you all the time. That said, I agree that advertising is a good thing, just that marketing has focused too much on direct advertising and less and actually being accommodating. This article showed up on HN not too long ago, but it's still worth reading twice: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/07/how-google-analytics-ruine...