The same way it used to work: you show the same ads to almost everyone based on the content, not the people. Not that I think advertisers will go for it.

That's considered "spray and pray" today. Today advertisers want data, data, data, and micro-targeting is everything. The entire advertising industry has become something akin to a private signals intelligence agency.

Today? For the past 20 years I've been hearing how data collection will enable advertisers to precisely target ads and that ads would go from being a nuisance to being useful.

It's not working very well. How much more data do they need to collect before it starts working?

They know what product I'm going to buy... after I've bought it. They've almost got it right; all they need is a time machine.

I love it when I've bought jewelry for my wife and every damned ad is for the same jewelry store. Hard enough hiding a gift, now I have to hide my browser like I'm sneaking around watching porn.

That's just what either private browsing or ad/tracking blockers are for now. Under the coming regime, they'll track where you've been but you'll still (for now) be able to block the resultant ads.

This is not the fault of the platform, but the advertiser.

When you see an ad that's too tailored most people just get scared anyway.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I don't believe that for a second.

I've seen relevant ads beside search results on Google, but that doesn't really take a lot of magic to figure out that when I search for "Aeropress", I'm interested in coffee.

Ads in podcasts have been somewhat effective as well. I use Blue Apron, I like Audible, I've checked out Squarespace, I bought a Casper dog bed. AFAIK, none of the podcasts know anything about me, but they do know generally who their audience is.

It's true. Here are two pages of references from Bruce Schneier. https://books.google.com/books?id=MwF-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT194&lpg=...

> That's considered "spray and pray" today. Today advertisers want data, data, data, and micro-targeting is everything.

And even with all that, the most of the targeted ads aren't any more compelling than content-based "spray and pay."

IMHO, targeted ads are pointless unless they're a targeted to a search query.