no, they have so much data because their models are so bad. the vast data is used to give the illusion of good models by sheer volume, so little random matches are made more likely. that’s why google and the like want to hoover up our data, they’re desperate to keep the gravy train rolling long enough to create the good models and keep it going some more.

I've only experienced it first-hand on youtube. After trying to learn spanish and talking spanish on the phone (but searched nothing on youtube in Spanish) Youtube offers recommendations in Spanish. Also after I sneezed a couple of times it recommends something related to hay fever. Lots more. I find these way more than circumstancial.

> And counting them all as crazy or paranoid

Nobody is saying that. It's simply a quirk of human psychology. We are pattern matching machines with a poor intuitive grasp of probability.