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Re:Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations by rsj_hn on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @05:46PM (#28700413)
Yes, I know the cause, but I'm pointing out a flaw in their plan.

It would be smarter to look for pools of products and be less targetted. E.g. to know that people who buy long lived leather belts may also be interested in long-lived leather wallets, or long-lived shirts, or glass containers instead of plastic, etc, and then rotate all these products in, rather than this targetted barrage of non-stop belt ads for the next year. This just can't be the optimal advertising strategy, there must be diminishing returns to this level of specificity.

Re:Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations by darkwizard42 on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @06:34PM (#28700855)
For what its worth, companies probably DO look into this, but people who are bidding on the "leather belt" keyword are outpaying those companies in adjacent products.

At the end of the day, advertising space is auction based and if the belt companies want to bid the highest for that space, they win.

Re:Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations by rsj_hn on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @07:32PM (#28701361)
That would be a really interesting example of market failure, as it suggests if the leather-belt companies pay less, they would get more business.