I don’t think enough is said about this:

• Google takes money from people and organizations to bombard me relentlessly with advertising.
• The targeting can be very specific and very personal.
• Google allows me to pay Google to make it stop.
• The people who are undoubtedly most impacted are the ones who cannot afford to pay the blackmail to make it stop.
• The messages to them are undoubtedly commercial reminders that they cannot afford to pay to make it stop.

Above, I’m thinking mostly of YouTube today, but there are examples in other services as well, and there are circumstances wherein “paying to make it stop” is not even an option.

Our peers in society will remind us that they’ve accepted placebo platitudes, like “If you’re not paying, you’re the product,” and “Well, you know it costs money to provide that service…” Others will urge you to just pay, with a “Come on, it’s only four or five (ridiculously expensive) coffees a month!” They’ve settled in and accepted it’s not an issue – at least to them personally.

But is it though? What is the societal impact, particularly when the lower classes are disproportionately affected? And by the way, are those pithy platitudes even valid? Are these companies aggregating your personal and behavioral data really strapped for cash while altruistically doing what they can to deliver you the content others are creating?

Who benefits when all of the protections are lifted?

I wonder… and I wonder if there are quiet movements out there somewhere working to turn the tables. Can those who promote these different things be made to feel the impact as their targets do?

Guerrilla tactics. Asymmetric techniques.

Somewhere out there, karma’s blade is being sharpened – that is inevitable – and it will use the same technology against them. How could it be karma and not resolve with poetic justice?

Alas, it’s not a cure. A cure would involve teaching everyone to be unaffected by the messaging in the first place. That would remove all of the profit from the activity. That would unwrite this post.

Now, how to get this message out? Hmmmm…