Back in the bad old days of adobe and flash plugins in Internet explorer, malicious ads targetting those were the malware infection vector in something like 80% of cases. Browsers have gotten better, but it remains the case that ad networks are the single easiest way to inject your mal-content into another website.
We see headlines about this-- about the Israeli firm that was abusing this, for instance, to hit targets-- and I am left scratching my head. Of course...?
IMHO it's the duty of any techie (with the social capital to influence digital hygiene) to ensure they and theirs are set up with at least ublock lite.
I suspect that Amazon somehow get paid for "impressions" by the ad originator.
(it looks very much like a standard enshitification pattern : 1) gain market dominance, 2) screw the users 3) screw the business customers )
Isn't the point of those, that in the end, the likelihood of you buying something again just recently bought might be tiny, but is probably still bigger than showing the same add to a random other person?
From an advertisers perspective the purchase intent of a person who has already purchased a thing (even a thing you don't normally purchase more than one of) is very very high.
Essentially ads can have two different purposes - to make you aware of a thing (isn't IKEA great) or to make you do a thing (buy new cabinet doors). Both kinds of ads perform better at both if you've recently purchased.
When you purchase something you have more of an association to it, and are more likely to notice it's ad. Which strengthens it's awareness effect.
When you purchase something you are much more likely to think purchasing it is worthwhile (even if you haven't received it yet) so are much more likely to either purchase more for yourself or for others if prompted, where you wouldn't if not.
It doesn't take much for that purchase intent to be worth a cent more than any other random mcguffin.
How does this work for holiday, tractors and coffins? Well seeing the holiday you just booked makes it massively more likely you'll click the ad and search and purchase a different holiday for later in the year.
For tractors - same thing. You carefully planned and bought one that you're convinced is great, now you'll see your good decision and go back and grab another - or maybe add a bailer or get some quads from the same place.
For coffins. You were choosing between two, you bought one, now you'll click on it and upsell yourself.
Notably the item you clicked previously is most likely to be bought again, but your intent is best transferred to another product by showing you the product you bought rather than guessing which other product you'd want.
Humans are stupid and fail to make logical decisions, instead they reinforce and justify their previous ones.
1) and a lot of them prefer them to be gone
2) why it would be a hard truth? I am not expecting that everyone will match my preferences
They probably have data on return rates and the brand/model people buy after returning? Or are you saying they show you the exact same brand/model you just bought? That would be weird, unless it’s a consumable.
I've asked people at Amazon on the recommendation algorithm side about this, since it comes up so often in discussions.
Their answer is that, surprisingly, it is a good heuristic. If you just bought something, you've shown intent, and there's a small probability that you're going to be unhappy with your initial purchase and back on the market soon, for whatever reason.
Is the posterior probability that you'll buy a mattress again shortly after buying one, a small chance? Yes, undoubtedly. But is it smaller than the prior probability of a random person who hasn't bought any mattress at all recently, suddenly being on the market for a mattress? Apparently not.
Weird things can happen with joint probabilities when both sides of the condition are very unlikely. Sort of like how your chance of having some rare cancer after testing positive on a ~99% accurate cancer screening test is still quite tiny.
It probably helps when your marketplace is filled with knockoffs and misrepresented trash.
This makes no sense. If I just bought a mattress, the prior probability of a random person buying it is irrelevant. What's relevant is the posterior distribution of what people buy after buying a mattress. Yes, you might buy another one, but what about other bedroom accessories for example?
A mattress might not be the best example though, because what really matters here is the expected value from the posterior probability, which includes the price. So a more expensive product with a slightly lower probability of purchase might yield a higher expected value than cheaper products with higher probability.
Anyway, that's orthogonal to the discussion: my point is that it's the posterior distribution conditioned on the mattress purchase that should be modeled, not the comparison with random people that may or may not just have bought a mattress.
> one place on earth where I will actively look around for ads, and that is London Underground stations
Like the ads I get on instagram, I actually don't mind because they are show me clothing consistent with my taste in clothes or appliance/utilties I'd find useful. Can't say I've ever seen a useful ad on twitter/X or Tiktok.
Amazon (or whoever) showing you the same stuff you just bought is kind of a separate issue, because it obviously isn't useful to anyone (including Amazon) and surely is so easy to avoid I find it bizarre that it still happens in this day and age.
As an aside, there is exactly one place on earth where I will actively look around for ads, and that is London Underground stations. Because for whatever reason they advertise a lot of cultural events (concerts, festivals, plays, etc).