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I have the same experience with ads all the time. Like, I get ads from Google to buy the Pixel XL 2 while I'm browsing the web on the Pixel XL 2 I recently bought from Google on the same account I'm currently signed in to Google with... Or Amazon will give me ads for books and things I recently purchased through Amazon.

I think a lot of their abilities are overstated.

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It's not Google's fault. It's the people buying the ads who are too lazy or don't know how to do proper targeting.

I've met three people in my life who were employed primarily to place ads on the internet. All three were glorified secretarial drones who fell into the position because nobody else wanted to do it.

"Lazy"? It seems to me that the ad ecosystem is incredibly complicated (for example, not even Google understands how malvertising gets on Google's ad network).

Any person who knows how to effectively place Internet ads has such high-status skills that they don't have to actually do it.

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