> No, I'm referring to the idea that the Brexit vote wouldn't have come out as it did absent, essentially, a conspiracy.
Nobody upthread has disagreed with you on that. So why are you arguing?
In that case, it doesn't matter what Cambridge Analytica did or didn't do. So why are you?
Even if Cambridge Analytica was not necessary for the vote to come out as it did, what they are trying to do still does matter. Because they or someone else is definitely working on improving their techniques, and they will be used in any number of elections to come.
That said, plenty of firms make money despite not actually doing as they purport to do. Perhaps Cambridge Analytica and Facebook and the like simply have yet to be exposed as charlatans.