[jka]

If someone knows that they want a hard drive with at least 100GB of storage, is it really necessary to construct advertising system infrastructure that can (attempt to) learn the users' requirements and needs (the same way an assistant might do)?

Isn't it simpler, cheaper and more respectful of people's own decision-making faculties to provide them with a way to retrieve a list of hard drives that match their requirements, and make their own choice?

My guess is that in 80%+ of situations, simple measurements and properties of products (with price, reliability, and perhaps other ranking factors to tie-break) are all that consumers want.