[minsc_and_boo]

As long as there are imperfect markets, there is demand from sellers for advertising to do targeting.

If the goal is to remove advertising, then it may be better to set up mechanisms for consumers to share information with sellers, rather than play whack-a-mole with adtech.

[convolvatron]

are you suggesting I should..publish my preferences so companies can decide if they want to pitch to me? or that I should just show up ready to hear whatever they have to say? really confused here.

[minsc_and_boo]

More along the lines of giving you control to allow brands you trust to know more about you. Imperfect markets exist because of the unbalance of information, which is why adtech with its information is in demand.

This is already happening with Whole Foods / Amazon, REI, and other loyalty programs.

[JohnFen]

> giving you control to allow brands you trust to know more about you.

I'd be thrilled with this, as long as I can choose zero brands, and companies will refrain from collecting data about me.

[minsc_and_boo]

They'd be paying you directly for your information through incentives.

[skydhash]

AKA consumer surveys.

Telemetry in software is never worth it in my opinion. The only part that is useful is crash detection and logging. But if the goal is to decide what is important or no, the data just become self reinforcing. You have all those feature request boards and items with multiple votes on it and the company never act on them (Looking at you, Spotify), so what is the usefulness on the telemetry then?