Hacker News Reader

What's frivolous about a wallet or a sweater? Ultimately, all your hard-earned income is to make your life easier via goods and services, some of which may be frivolous. If you can't trust yourself not to make all frivolous purchases, that's a problem you can try to solve on your own.

View on HN

How many wallets or sweaters does one need? That is the reason I included the word "ultimately" in my comment

I'm not arguing we don't need to buy anything ever. I'm arguing most ads are either pushing stuff you don't really need 99% of the time or selling outright junk. And let's not get into how close some ads are to plainly false advertising (I'm looking at you, wellness / nutrition)

Sounds like you are experiencing poorly targeted ads if 99% of yours aren't things you need :)

Question. If your ads were perfectly targeted in that 100% of advertised products were something that you're interested in, is that not ideal? Isn't that what companies like Google and Facebook are trying to do? Wouldn't you be happier if you didn't get the Wellness / Nutrition / Viagra ads?

Interested isn't a synonym for need. If you are "interested" in junk food, ads for it aren't something to you "need."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com