The author seems to have a deep understanding of how businesses work. Some of it's pretty gross -- I hate reading about "creating desire", and similar dystopic capitalist memes -- but it's important to understand what's going on in these companies.
The application is not life-saving, but the conclusions are the same. It's like dynamite and atom splitting. You can use it for the good and for the bad.
> it's important to understand what's going on in these companies.
This is simple. They study people's behavior to drive it for their benefit. The basics of it should be taught in high school, so people better understand themselves.
And yeah, I'm reading about it because it's important to understand, anthropologically.
Driving demand is how some people discover lifelong hobbies.
Buddhists have this down pat: Desire is suffering.
I think people are pretty capable of finding hobbies on their own. We're connected to this global information network. It's not like people aren't being exposed to new ideas all the time. But telling them "you will be happier if you buy this" is disingenuous, and makes people question their existing happiness. That's... bad.
I'll tell you one place where it's appropriate, though -- if someone is already seeking recreation, and doesn't know which option they want, marketing a specific answer is fine. One of the reasons people love libraries is that they can go wander around and discover something they'd never heard of. But that's someone who is already looking for a book to spend time with! Compare to a banner ad saying "this book will fix your life", when someone was just trying to look up information on how to fix their mower. They don't need that. They need to fix their mower.