[mathgeek]

I despise advertising, but anecdotally, I can think of three ads in the past week that informed me about products I didn’t know existed but would enjoy. I also learned about multiple new games releasing, sporting events that were happening, etc. The claim that ads are not at all informative is incorrect.

That being said, I also block as many ads as possible from my life, so the few I actively notice tend to be more noticeable.

[prymitive]

Every idea taken to extreme becomes unbearable. I ask friends for recommendations on what to read or watch, and I enjoy doing that. But if they would follow me around everywhere and keep suggesting things non stop purely because they make money out of it then they would stop being my friends very quickly.

[g-b-r]

You could have a service that lets you look for promotional information, only when you want.

And lets you configure it from a completely random choice of ad, to something tailored for what you're really looking for at the moment (as opposed to the surveillance industry trying to read your mind).

If you steal the idea please give me a slice of the revenue xD (although it would be best if it were not for profit, so that there could be a single one)

[mathgeek]

The catch there is I don’t look for this stuff, as it isn’t a priority. I am happier not pursuing what advertisers want to sell me, as my time is limited. I imagine many folks are the same, based on it being a core problem advertising tries to solve for businesses.

[card_zero]

That's kind of interesting. I was thinking independent reviews would become important. But you're saying that you wouldn't want to spend any time at all reading or watching or listening to the output of an entertainment reviewer.

Instead you want exactly what adverts do: to be tracked in an effort to read your mind, and then to mendaciously shove news about events and movies and games in your path, while you're doing other things. Interleaved between songs you were listening to, in a sidebar when you use software, as a two-second video before the video you were going to watch deliberately. You will have to be extra skeptical about the things you hear this way. The whole industry, including the free ad-supported services, is a bucket of the sleaziest crabs, clambering over one another in a competition to win your money's attention by any means, not necessarily by giving you honest information. But that's the way you like it.

Yet you said at the start you despise ads and block them. Huh.

[mathgeek]

That's a lot of extrapolation that's incorrect. All I said was I've found some ads recently that were actually useful to me. I don't want to seek out ads, nor do I want to see them. Usefulness does not imply desirability. Think of it like "I don't want to drive in traffic, but hey, there are some funny billboards along the way. I wish they'd just take down all the billboards, but at least some of them were funny if I'm forced to see them."