I think this is a great post, but it also makes me so sad because it highlights a lot of the general pessimism I've felt about the direction of tech over the past decade or so (after so much optimism in the 90s and 00s). I mean, I feel like your description of "Really effective targeted advertising" is spot on, but it also makes me think "Why don't they just dump as all in the nutrient baths Matrix-style and just hook our eyeballs up to a continuous loop of ads?"

In seriousness, I feel like the only hope here is that the general population gets more and more aware about the negative impacts on all this hyper-targeted advertising. Certainly we've been making strides there with things like GDPR and documentaries like the Social Dilemma, but with so much money on the line it will be hard to fight back.