In theory, it doesn't have to be evil. In theory, it could be good to attract users to information that benefits them and increases discoverability for that purpose. In theory...

The same thing can be said about spam. It could be good to be able to send useful information to users right to their inbox while avoiding being detected as "spam".

In reality it's mostly just dark pattern marketing.

Well, maybe we could use the news to make more people aware of it and help mitigate human behavior? ;-)

But, yeah, it can be used for nefarious purposes. In fact, it probably will be. Hidden under that will be good uses.

I suspect there's going to be constant innovation. There are people who thought that personal transportation was a solved problem back when we rode animals. These days, we are looking at an EV revolution and SDV somewhere in the not-too-distant future. Along the way, it hasn't been a solved problem, even though it looked like it was.

I guess that's what I've been clumsily trying to say.