I would love to know from the rest here - isn’t a solution to the ad creep just… not buying things? Like going for second hand / refurbished, avoiding big brands for food and drink, and just not shopping online (ffs)? Or am I being naive? Enlighten me!
Of course working under the assumption that the government cannot (yet) admit to tracking us for more sinister purposes. That’s a problem for another day.
Support local. Get a pihole. Guard your privacy. Avoid the algorithm apps. Switch to grapheneos. Vote.
I use neutral DNS, a variant of ad block on my router, waterfox ad block, ublock origin, and noscript. So I’m doing my part.
But yes the ultimate fuck you is just not buy stuff. I mean these days, if I do see an advert, maybe I will think about it, if when rarely it gets my attention, and then I’ll forget and go on to do other stuff. I think the only thing I bought this year was a video game, and that was because I could get it for $4 since I sold all my CSGO skins. A lot of these companies shot themselves in the foot by making online shopping the major outlet. Personally, I can’t be bothered to make an account nor do I really trust anything I don’t see in person. Avoiding big brands is more difficult now since they rebrand the same stuff; think of Trader Joes.
I fix as much stuff as I can to avoid buying stuff, partially to take advantage of my skills and partially out of spite. Like my mouse, switches went bad, I upgraded them for a few bucks. Or the tea kettle stopped working, ripped off the panel where the switch is, turns out the plastic bit wasn’t making good contact to trigger it; modified it to work.
There is substantial tracking when shopping offline too. Retailers use cameras with facial recognition, sentiment analysis, and reportedly some are even beginning to use dynamic pricing.
Yeah that latter part is dystopian AF, but do you mean food shopping here? That’s tough to dodge I guess, and not everyone can afford the hipster microbrands, but I’m talking about other commodities.
Yes, dystopian. And yes, it includes food retailers too. (here for me is USA btw).
For more reading, do a web search for terms like:
- retail dynamic pricing
- surveillance pricing
- retail sentiment analysis
- electronic price tags
Here’s a discussion about Kroger’s market doing it. There are many others. A few US states are moving to ban the practice, and Maryland has passed a law banning it, though what I’ve read suggests that it bans the practice, not the in-store surveillance that enables it. Both parties controlling US politics want ubiquitous mass surveillance, and are happy to let surveillance capitalism work around constitutional protections.
Long story short… they know who you are when you walk in, and they catalog and analyze your in-store behaviors, interactions, and reactions, and they increasingly understand and exploit your willingness to pay for a particular item.
You could argue that it’s worse than online shopping. It’s more akin to shopping online with your webcam on and the online shop recording everything.
Soo happy I don’t live in the US :P but lest we forget: Europe spawned it/them (the US)
It’s also examining one’s own personal consumption patterns. The more one engages with it, the more exposure he or she has.
Not shopping on line will most often cause consumers to spend more time to find what they are looking for locally and will cost them more money. Whichever way we go (on line or off line), it is going to cost us in some way.
I mean we could also just… not shop at all, or way way less? It’s a weird hobby if you think of it. Food is hard to avoid because supermarkets are assholes, but I have my local free shop for clothes, and our countrywide 2nd hand market app for other things i might occasionally need like appliances or tech. But I also see, in the same country, the creeping in of US style urbanism where there are small towns which are basically just becoming large shopping outlets with parkings and fast food. Makes me wonder.
