[kuschku]

> Relevant ads also save users (the segment that buys stuff from ads) time from researching for products and services.

That is specifically not wanted.

Several European governments are subsidizing projects to provide consistent and exhaustive comparison tests between many products instead, so customers can for each category of product they may need find massive comparison tables, find which products fulfill their needs, and can buy the cheapest one.

This makes the market more efficient, because the best product for the lowest price wins, instead of the best marketed product.

One such example is the Stiftung Warentest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest

[merinowool]

So is that going to be another parcel of life under the state control? It is easy to predict such tools are going to be abused (for example excluding products from a producer that has opposite political views to the currently ruling people)

[kuschku]

Every company today that you rely on to discover products will shape what you see for their own advantage.

Google puts their own ads more prominently and bans competitors from certain ad spaces, Amazon does the same, as does even Yahoo.

And your worst fear is that maybe the government might end up just as bad as the companies that you see as alternative?

[merinowool]

There is a difference thought - you can't have multiple governments to choose from at any given time. State always limit the choice.