[dan-robertson]

I think the argument which is charitable to Facebook is that they make money by more efficiently matching advertisements to slots: advertisers are less willing to pay for generic slots in a newspaper than targeted slots because, in theory, a slot seen by someone more desirable. Facebook do advanced targeting to allow slots to be sold at closer to their fair value by making buyers better informed and they take a fee for improving the efficiency.

But it’s still reasonable to argue that the targeting is not as effective as claimed, the fee is too large, or that there are political reasons to dislike targeting and we should disallow it even if it makes the ad market more efficient.

[mlatu]

i mean, of course i want the best THINGS for my bucks, so advertising good wares is kind of desirable...

but perhaps that is not enough. perhaps the scope needs to include production of wares: i dont just want inferior wares to not be advertised, but rather not even made. time, effort and resources wasted on trash products are a shame we are going to feel painfuly in the coming decades if humanity ever wakes up from the capitalist dream