But how do smaller companies make you aware of their products if they can’t target you?

Sometimes I have a problem that could be solved with money. I google/whatever favorite search engine is for a product that solves the problem that I want to solve. At no point adtech is required, in fact I would prefer if adtech wasn't involved.

I don’t know, I have all ads blocked everywhere and still discover new products. I also discovered new things, before the internet was such an ad-ridden mess that adblockers became a requirement for decent UX.

Just like before there were targeted ads?

Well, before targeted ads there were blogs and they were well read. Not so much anymore since Google decimated that channel.

Think "before blogs". Windows 3.1 rose to dominance when the Internet wasn't a factor for the vast majority of computer users (and even less for everybody else).

How could they possibly have acquired customers back then?!?

With money… lots and lots of it spent on brand level marketing in print media as well as with direct sales reps.

Do they really need to know with which hand I am likely to wipe my arse with, though?

Smaller companies using the services provided by the bigger fish have caused a self-perpetuating circle of ever increasing imbalances in many areas.

The resources that are being spent on not only keeping this machine in tact, but as seen in the article, grow it even further, show that this machine isn't going to stop itself and that higher intervention is required.

This is going to be costly and hurt in other ways, but with it being a massive stap towards a sort of post-scarcity society as was shown in Star Trek and by the Venus project, it's worth every tear and every penny.

If anything the society depicted in Star Trek has even less privacy, but ok.

I don't want privacy just for the sake of having it. It's a tool that serves a purpose that's no longer or significantly less relevant in that story.