Plausibly, it depends on how they're used. I would especially draw a distinction between ads as part of the platform's core business model, and ads used partly to annoy people until they buy a paid, "premium" version.
For all Meta's flaws, their ads are actually pretty good. Both Facebook and Instagram regularly show me stuff I actually want to see, and advertise products I would either consider buying, or at least like looking at.
Youtube, on the other hand, seems to be pursuing a strategy of not so much advertising things people might want to buy, as annoying them until they finally give in and buy Youtube Premium. As far as I can tell, Grammerly doesn't care about targeted advertising at all, and is secretly a company developed by Youtube specifically to annoy people with plausible deniability. Despite having a lot of data on me -- I watch reviews on Youtube to see if I want to buy certain products -- they ignore this, and have played the exact same Verbo ad at least 30 times. I'll click on a link to a review of an art product, and instead of the clear and obvious move of advertising an art product, which I am currently interested in buying (clearly!), or even something like Sketchbox, for people who aren't committed to any particular art supply and just want to try them out -- instead of that, they load a Grammerly ad for the 50th time. Video companies seem the most susceptible to this model, and it is pretty antagonistic.
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Notes -
Plausibly, it depends on how they're used. I would especially draw a distinction between ads as part of the platform's core business model, and ads used partly to annoy people until they buy a paid, "premium" version.
For all Meta's flaws, their ads are actually pretty good. Both Facebook and Instagram regularly show me stuff I actually want to see, and advertise products I would either consider buying, or at least like looking at.
Youtube, on the other hand, seems to be pursuing a strategy of not so much advertising things people might want to buy, as annoying them until they finally give in and buy Youtube Premium. As far as I can tell, Grammerly doesn't care about targeted advertising at all, and is secretly a company developed by Youtube specifically to annoy people with plausible deniability. Despite having a lot of data on me -- I watch reviews on Youtube to see if I want to buy certain products -- they ignore this, and have played the exact same Verbo ad at least 30 times. I'll click on a link to a review of an art product, and instead of the clear and obvious move of advertising an art product, which I am currently interested in buying (clearly!), or even something like Sketchbox, for people who aren't committed to any particular art supply and just want to try them out -- instead of that, they load a Grammerly ad for the 50th time. Video companies seem the most susceptible to this model, and it is pretty antagonistic.
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