Ads try to make useful recommendations thats why google puts so much effort into trying to figure out who you are. Companies today can suggest their products to exactly who they think would most want them. But this comes with the downsides of user privacy.
If we had no ads then companies would pretend to be real people and make product suggestions. We can never escape it.
xep@discuss.online 1 week ago
Word of mouth existed far before advertising, and as for algorithmic discoverability retailers do a fine job of that already.