Comment on Shitty stores that penalise you for not having their store card
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 day agoHistorically, the whole point to the loyalty card coupons was because then they could track your purchases and sell that data on you.
It used to be incredibly valuable, and it techncially still is. But your big box retail stores are going to insane lengths, including tracking you from the moment you pull into their parking lot (including knowing what kind of car you drive,) and how many times you circle, lets say, the lego aisle, or the cookies. They know how long you spend looking at stuff and are selling all of that. (as well as using for marketing to sell you more shit you don’t need.)
fizzle@quokk.au 1 day ago
I don’t for a moment doubt that this is true.
The thing that amazes me is… how terribly poorly targeted ads are?
As in, I purchased a washing machine last week, so as an avid purchaser of washing machines I certainly need to see ads for washing machines?
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 20 hours ago
This always irks me, like if you’re going to harvest my data, could you at least use some of your immense repository of data insights to improve your product? No? You’re just going to enclose the data commons in your ridiculous quest to make the line go up, without giving any value back to the people who facilitated your growth? Yeah, I thought that’d be the case. Disappointed, but not surprised that this is the case.
The context in which this most often annoys me is that nearly every Tuesday, I go to a philosophy discussion group at a nearby pub. I usually get the route up on Google maps through Android Auto because the optimal route depends a lot on traffic, and each time, I have to manually type in the name of the pub.
It especially annoys me when sometimes, on a day that isn’t Tuesday, the pub will be listed near the top of the suggested destinations when I first launch Google maps. I literally never go to that pub for any reason other than the philosophy group.
It’s such a trivial thing to be annoyed by, but equally, it appears to me that actually giving useful suggestions in straightforward cases such as this is equally trivial. It reveals that they truly don’t give a fuck about improving products (and indeed, when it comes to Google’s offerings, so much of it has gotten worse. Google assistant and its voice recognition used to be way more reliable and powerful in the past. I first started using Android 10 years ago and I had so much fun tinkering with automation on my Nexus 6; there are things that I could do before that I no longer can, and it annoys me to no end)