I guess I'll have to check under the bed for my missing billions.
> Also with targeted ads you don't have to hear/read about products you will never care for a moment in your life.
I don't have to look at irrelevant adverts at all because I use an adblocker. Something I started to use because of the battery sucking CPU fan abusing privacy invading toxic wasteland that is the online advertisement industry.
The tech industry in general, and online advertising companies specifically proved over many years they couldn't be trusted to look after people's data and privacy, so forgive me if I don't shed a tear for the shitbags who now have to stop exploiting me and my family's data.
The way targeted advertising is currently implemented is a mass violation of privacy and autonomy, a clear and present threat to democracy and liberty, and an indicator of the complete ethical collapse of the US tech sector.
When I'm researching for product of a certain kind, I often get advertisements for months after I bought such a device. I still get ads for a 3D printer that I bought 3 months ago, I stopped caring then and find it frankly annoying.
It has been more then 10 years now but I've worked a couple of years in e-commerce when Google Analytics was still Urchin and ad-sense was not a big thing. You know how we needed to drive sales traffic to our sites ? By providing good and informative content and that sometimes being the smaller shop.