I tried out Google’s non-personalized ads for a while, and wow the ads were bad, especially on YouTube. Not like irrelevant but downright obnoxious. But wait, we’ve seen this before!
A couple years ago, Google noticed that ads were starting to get downright atrocious and started fighting them. One relevant blog post: https://blog.google/technology/ads/building-better-web-every...
Why Google oh why are ads so bad? Because advertisers got more evil? Yes and no. Google got more evil advertisers as all the good ad money went to Facebook’s properties.
2012 https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/google-edges-cl...
2019 https://www.emarketer.com/chart/217028/facebook-vs-google-sh...
Google’s recent blogpost is frustratingly “right”: given the opportunity cost of bad ads, an average user is better off opting in to higher-quality tracking-targeted ads. BUT! That is only because Google the ad company lost the good content. And sadly, Google the software company owns the browser, so they have to make do in a Google world.
This isn’t even an issue about privacy. It’s about a company overtly misrepresenting the interests of its users in bad faith. No different than Uber tacking on the $1 “safe rides” fee as a pure margin generator rather than as protection for riders.