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by com2kid 893 days ago
> Ads have existed long before clicks

Not really. Advertising is pretty new, modern advertising with targeting market segments didn't exist until around the start of the 20th century[1]. The first ad supported media was in 1838[2].

Behavioral ads targeting individual user's are super new, though I'd argue TikTok and gacha games are orders of magnitude better at using behavioral manipulation than advertisers are.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Barratt [2]https://qprintgroup.com.au/history-of-print-advertising/