[robin_reala]

It’s not local, because your cohort id will be sent to advertisers, and they’ll back-reference that against what they believe you’re interested in.

But either way, your initial statement assumes that ads will only be interesting to you if your browsing habits are tracked across the internet. There’s another option: if you visit sites that are focused on GPUs they can advertise GPUs to you. This is the way advertising worked from 1700-2000.

[mavhc]

From 1700-2000 you just had whatever adverts everyone else had.

From 2000-2010 you had site/search based adverts

From 2010-2020 you had tracking based adverts

I can't think of even 1 time I've seen a useful advert though

[berkes]

I can.

And almost without exception, those were relevant ads, not targeted.

Relevant like getting a coupon code for digital ocean storage credits below an article on how to run your own IPFS host.

Or relevant like getting an offer for pizzafriday on the 'where to eat' information section of a campsite in some unfamiliar city.

[GoblinSlayer]

For me usefulness and relevance aren't a problem, I block ads because they are ugly.