Oh Google, google!
The Google ecosystem is woven deeply into my life. And it is extremely difficult to extricate one from it. There are other ecosystems like Apple’s that we are deeply stuck in. Thankfully, our family does use Facebook deeply with only limited exposure to Whatsapp as a communication tool.
With Google, it would be Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube in that order. Google Adwords is one that I have the most fun with. And I let it entertain me. I am still getting advertisements for dishwashers for more than a month after searching and buying one.
Recently I was searching for better internet service on my computer while watching something on the big-screen TV on YouTube. And every YouTube advertisement ended up being for the internet service providers. Including the one I already use.
I hardly notice the Google Search Adwords advertisements anymore having learned to detune from them. In YouTube, though you have two kinds - one that lets you skip after a few seconds and one’s that you need to watch in full. I have mostly learned to detune from these as well.
And then you realize, these advertisements are not about you at all. And it doesn’t matter whether you watch them or not. Or whether you click them or not. The more they are shown, the more they enrich Google’s coffers. And I don’t mind them, being a Google stockholder. The more they make the merrier for me too. My only regret is that I did not buy enough of them.
That is why Google won’t ask you about the relevance of their advertisements. It would be easy for Google to build a tool that actually asks the user what they are interested in buying. If they pay me, I might gladly give them that information. Similarly, the serving of the stale advertisements for dishwashers can easily be stopped. As Google knows that I stopped searching for these keywords a while now. But, again Google doesn’t care. Accuracy might mean less revenue for them. So, life goes on like this.
And my detuned and zoned-out entertainment continues. Oh Google, google! What will we do without you?
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