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twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross

Amazon Prime Day hasn't been interesting or novel since 2005 or so, but that's not going to stop anybody from pretending otherwise so they can get their blogspam affiliate kickbacks

I could maybe tolerate this slightly better if I'd seen the people in charge of U.S. media make literally ANY serious effort in the last two decades to creatively fund meaningful journalism or hadn't watched countless editor and journalist friends get shitcanned by trust fund brunchlord failsons

AI and the complete destruction of whatever was left of U.S. regulatory corporate oversight is going to take all of this to the next level these trust fund failsons envision the internet as a giant ouroboros that just shits ad engagement cash and kickbacks, quality or usefulness be damned

every so often I get some drive by defensive hack who insists that turning journalistic brands into badly automated blogspam cack is WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS as if there was no other choice but to sell out the entirety of your brand credibility for modest affiliate kickbacks

I like sharing this old post from someone I don’t know:

Has anyone written about targeted advertising being bullshit? It feels much like AI in that businesses don't understand it but fall for the sales job and everyone's doing it so it must work, etc. But I have no expertise in this topic.