And yet I can explicitly type the exact parameters for an item I'm looking for into Google or Amazon and I get flooded with bullshit that is not that thing.
this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
757 points (99.2% liked)
memes
21482 readers
2441 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
“Oh you’re looking for a red KitchenAid blender type # 5KSB2073EER? Great! Here’s that 4 CD set of traditional Turkmenistan folk music you wanted.”
Sorry all these other companies paid us more to put their shit in front of your eyeballs than the one who sells the thing you want.
Amazon's primary revenue driver is selling the top spots in their search results. So it's no surprise that when you search for something, you almost never see what you're looking for. They have literally created a system that intentionally shows you what you're NOT looking for in order for them to make a profit.
Ok. I'm adding that to my cart but I'm mad about it.
Now show me the manual for the fucking blender you asshole.
Blender tutorial noises
First, delete the default cube
load more comments
(1 replies)
I mean, one must admit that a 4 CD set of traditional Turkmenistan folk music does sound pretty sweet.
DDG is getting worse but it's not this bad. I've tried Kagi's free sample (about search 30/100 rn) and it's excellent. I still don't know if I'll buy a subscription to it but I like the incentive model.
load more comments
(1 replies)
That's because what you're searching for is what you definitely want, so they know you're likely click/buy it. But if throw a bunch of crap that you maybe might want before you get to it, maybe you'll buy some of that too. It's like how supermarkets throw a bunch of junk food in a checkout lane, maybe you'll get tempted while you're forced to stand there even though you just wanted to buy laundry detergent.
It’s also a giant heaping spoonful of incompetence.
Not until I finally buy something do I get floder with the right ads, at which point those ads are pointless.
For all the data they have on us they sure are pretty ass at utilizing it.
I've been looking for a new job. Now I get ads for jobs. That's actually nice, were it not that they're always the same five shitty jobs every time.
Those are the five shitty jobs that paid for advertising.
I wouldn't wakt to work for a company that recruits through advertising.
load more comments
(1 replies)
“Hey, can I interest you in data entry for AI?”
I tried getting directions to a restaurant from Google Maps yesterday and it routed me inefficiently through an intersection with a paid sponsor restaurant. This was the biggest enshittification of direction apps I’ve experienced. Not only did it give me worse directions, but what are the chances I need to stop at the paid restaurant when I am trying to get to another restaurant in 20 minutes?
what are the chances I need to stop at the paid restaurant when I am trying to get to another restaurant in 20 minutes?
That's not the purpose though. This puts this other restaurant in your head for some other time. You may think you're not actually affected by this tactic, but decades of research shows that, even when aware of this, it still fucking works.
So the only winning move is not to use Google
I'm glad they convinced me to turn my mattress purchase into a mattress collection.
This article about a person who bought an urn online is hilarious. Amazon thinks I'm a serial killer now (cracked dot com)
load more comments
(1 replies)
I wish Google would put ~~so~~ all their ~~sitting~~ ~~soying~~ spying to ~~God~~ good ~~is~~ use to improve their text prediction on their ~~site~~ swipe input.
I've actually turned off my autocomplete lately. It's become too annoying.. I'd rather make "your fingers are too fat"-mistakes than all the "God" and "ducking" every time. People only have to understamd about 80% of the words you write in order to understand the message. Si, a swnwnve kike thud id not thw ens og the wprld.
Yeah it's worked like it was vibe-coded by AI since long before LLMs became mainstream (I wonder if that's bc they are the predecessors of LLMs in the first place?).
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
If they're going to that much effort to figure out what I might buy, why they stupidly deluge me with ads for major appliances right after I buy them? I mean how likely am I gonna want another dishwasher the same week?
I think them having all this info about you, is a way to get advertisers to pay them more for the targeted ads.
It's not to help you or the advertisers, but themselves.
And I assume not a single advertiser has gone up to them with a well grounded: "bruh, dafuq are you doing showing fridge ads to the guy that just bought a fridge from us... that's not what we are paying you for."
load more comments
(1 replies)
Because they get paid to send ads to people who might be interested in Dishwashers.
Google/Instagram/Whatever (generally) doesn't make money when you buy a dishwasher.
load more comments
(6 replies)
Remember when people used to think we were crazy regarding advertising based on speech secretly recorded?
I do this fun thing I've dubbed the "platypus test" to show people how crazy it is. If you open Instagram and scroll through reels while talking gibberish adding the word platypus every now and then you will eventually start seeing them in your feed. Its rather quick too, I managed to get results within 10 minutes.
I still think it's bogus unless I see clear proof of it. That would imply your Instagram app somehow needs to bypass the kernel which let's the system know when the microphone is being used (some OS let's you know when mic or app is accessed real-time). That seems like an awfully open backdoor to microphone access.
Go try it out and let me know your results. Just for context I'm using GrapheneOS. And yeah I know some hardware backdoor would seem paranoid but consider the reach of said company.
I have, repeatedly, because it's not the first time I hear of this, only once did something similar to what I was saying appeared. Sounds like a coincidence to me.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Air conditioning filters. I need air conditioner filters. My air conditioner filters are filthy. I need to buy air conditioner filters
I searched for a car air filter the other day. I bought a car air filter the other day. I am still receiving ads for car air filters today.
Shit's dumb as hell.
Did you tell it that I need kitchen utensils up the butt
As if they'd need to actually hear you say stuff. They know what you think before you do
load more comments
(1 replies)
So i have been thinking about it and I often wonder if it is the reverse. They subtly influence us to want a thing. Once you’re hooked and consciously want it, you start noticing it.
... hyper-realistic bedazzled dildo
GOOG giving it to META seems apropos considering how they're respectively doing with their AI crap.
The last two times I mentioned Little Sleazers, the LC app pushed notifications for random ass deals. Like immediately; not even some time later that I could think perhaps it was coincidental. "Little Ceasar's sucks" phone dings.
Also Pete Holmes new standup special talks about this. Makes me wonder how many people in that audience got ads for giant black jelly dildos specifically made for ass play. 🤔
also, using Google to search for a term/subject while watching a YouTube video that mentioned it
I searched the first four generic characters of something I'd never searched before, and the full subject popped right up as the suggestion
either the phone is listening, or they're cataloguing video content subjects. either way, building tons of data points on you
And I have balls
I'm a juggler, I mean
And I'm male, though I was a woman for a few years there
I just need to buy my plane tickets for noodling about with no direction of specific importance. Be mad if there was a wedding there too wouldn't it
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›