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Probably. A couple of non technical friends and I were talking about Bitcoin one evening, they had never heard of it.

A few days later one of these friends calls me asking how is it possible that he's seeing Bitcoin ads everywhere after we talked. I also thought that's Baader-Meinhof happening, but it doesn't make ads any less creepy.

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Ha, I had a couple of experiences alike also. But then if you look at the big picture, it makes sense. You're a solid target for Bitcoin ads, you're in the same location with 3 other people, likely same demographics, interests, social status etc. and they become a target too?

This is all suppositions of course, I have no idea how it works. But I've tried this experiment with my gf once:

We both opened Instagram and started talking about a product class that we never saw ads for there, say like shampoos. We even mentioned a few brands and then waited for the ads to hit us. They never did.

EDIT We use iPhones

> you're in the same location with 3 other people, likely same demographics, interests, social status etc. and they become a target too

Nice, let's call this technique "advertisement by osmosis" :-)

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