Re:Privacy Badger is a free browser extension made by EFF to...
by likium on Monday September 29, 2025 @03:09AM
(#45411072)
The incentive to show post-purchase ads is:
1. people didn't like nth purchase so they're looking for a substitute.
2. reinforce purchase behaviors / reduce buyer's remorse.
Ads work at human psychology; they're not fully logical. Though I'm sure there's inefficiency in marketing but if post-purchase ads weren't ROI positive, I doubt the market would be paying for them.
Re:Privacy Badger is a free browser extension made by EFF to...
by labcomputer on Monday September 29, 2025 @03:45AM
(#45411261)
Like I said before, this phenomenon is broadly applicable across almost everything. I’m hedging with “almost” because I haven’t personally seen data for every category of product, but I believe that it applies universally.
In a sibling comment I replied to someone with an objection that it doesn’t apply to cars… with a personal anecdote that it does, at least sometimes, apply to even cars.
Even governments do it: Having previous purchased a nuclear submarine is highly predictive of future nuclear submarine purchases. Likewise, you probably have not purchased a nuclear submarine, which makes me think you probably won’t buy one this year. ;-)
i think no one would disagree that there are things they buy very frequently, almost on a schedule. (then again, with these items people are probably very accustomed to buying the same brand of milk every week, so ads don't seem reasonable here as well).