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Comment by fenomas | Hacker News Reader

Why would that be the case? If somebody wants to sell me fishing poles, the only data that's valuable to them is data that predicts how likely I am to buy fishing poles. And I don't think there's any data an advertiser could capture that would do a better job of that than what Google and Facebook already have on offer.

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If you are an advertiser for a product (let's say a fishing) pole and you are targeting a certain demographic (let's say people who might buy a fishing pole) and you know that the person you are targeting, beyond just being interested in fishing pole, is also a family man, you might show an ad that emphasises how fishing is a family act and brings people together. Alternatively if the person you are targeting is a person who likes solitude, you might emphasise the peace and silence of fishing on your own.

That is one reason why knowing your individual target is valuable beyond targeting a certain demographic - you can tailor your ad to the individual, which in theory will increase the likelihood of a sale.

I think what OP's referring to is forms of "targeted up-sell", where they could choose what kind of fishing poles to sell to you. Here, the deal might be a favourable one, but not for you (but for the sellers of course).

There was that (in)famous NYTimes article from a few years ago about how the target supermarket was successful in finding out a teenager's pregnancy before the girl's father did, and sent her coupons for baby items (which is how the father first got wind of the likelihood of his daughter's pregnancy).

So, as the OP says, it gets murky and grey very quickly as you get into "personalised" selling.

We "live in interesting times" indeed.

Sure, but I guess we're talking at cross-purposes. Target didn't (I presume) send that girl the coupons, after all, but everybody who matched certain segmentation provided by the ad platform . That's what I take the earlier poster to mean about advertisers not caring about "you specifically". Segmentation is valuable, certainly, but not individualization.

I was trying to give you quick summaried, multiple points of targeted advertising in my reply. Others who replied have taken the fishing example and pointed out how detailed targeting could go for that specific case.

And the particular case that you are now picking on could be argued as a corner case that captures both segmentation and individualisation at same time.

Anyway, the point has been made about why individualisation could be a tricky curve by me and the others. Choose whichever example(s) gives you the best rationale.

Really? Let's say I'm a fly fishing lodge... What do you think I'd pay more for:

1) someone who visits fishing websites 2) an individual who purchased (verified by credit card data) $5K worth of fly fishing gear

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