[paulryanrogers]

In a perfect world targeted ads could respond to what you want and haven't found yourself. And it would be at the best price, performance, etc that you preferred.

Recently I was seeking a way to record surround sound in surround sound. If ads had led me to that it would have been great. Instead I spent a week seeking and experimenting until sibling upon a semi abandoned commercial solution.

In practice ads don't know my desires well enough.

[TimJYoung]

I agree, but I don't think you can get there without seriously compromising the privacy of the individual. It's just too easy to leak information about a given individual when their "profile" is available to companies.