[jgys]

I can relate to this phenomenon (the “hey this $10 gadget I didn’t know existed but for an ad I saw has actually ended up being super useful to me!” thing), but the problem is that stories that end with me making a purchase with which I was satisfied, from which I got utility commensurate with the cost, are a vanishing minority of stories that begin with me seeing an ad.

In fact, the vast majority of the ads I see I couldn’t tell a story about at all, because I see hundreds or even thousands of ads each day and they’re so fleeting.

But the effects of seeing so many ads isn’t fleeting. Whether the deliberate manipulation of my attention is successful at influencing my behavior to increase the advertiser’s revenue is irrelevant, because my attention being manipulated either way, and relentlessly so, by numerous actors who are competing with each other for space in mind, using tools and techniques so sophisticated as to be heretofore unimaginable... and this results in much less space in mind being left for... me!

This is the problem with which I take issue.

[visarga]

> and this results in much less space in mind being left for... me!

beautifully said