An interesting deep-dive into how Google profiles and values different users.
It highlights that even though the service is “free”, the sheer value each user holds to Google from their data and ad-revenue. And with that, the impact you can have by leaving them.
If you haven’t already switched, you can check out the guide below to get started:
I have spent zero dollars on things that were advertised to me.
Google doesn’t care if you spend money on what is advertised to you. They get paid just for showing you the advert.
It’s an average. Some people are going to bring it down, some people bring it up. I take a certain pride in doing my best to bring it down, but at the end of the day living in a capitalist hellscape, you have to concede it’s going to get you at least a little.
Because it’s not just clicking on sponsored Google links. You may never directly buy something sponsored, but by giving them your data, you give them demographic information to find people like you that might be more prone to clicking links, and that helps.
That does matter. It costs money for companies to place adds with Google. That money goes directly to them regardless of whether or not you make a purchase. They then make use of their vast data resources to target people with said ads, which may not affect you, but definitely pushes products (some business people have described a 3x on investment with Google and Facebook ads).
Because Google ads are on nearly every website, and because Google owns such a large bevy of services including search, YouTube, Gmail, and maps, they can collect all of this data into a scarily accurate profile of your behavior, interests, and beliefs. Data that is shared with their partners and ends up all over the internet.
I mean, you’re just wrong. An attitude like this makes you a great target for advertising and marketing.
I don’t even have that amount of money to spend, you can argue if it’s truly zero or not but I don’t remember buying anything on an advert so far. Sometimes seen adverts for things I already bought and have no intention to buy again as I already have it.
You don’t have to buy directly from the advert for it to be beneficial to the advertiser.
But I don’t even buy their products at all
I think @[email protected] means that all Google cares about is the ads getting served to you.
The money to pay for that must come from somewhere though. There is no way at all that anyone could be getting even remotely close to that value out of me.
Yeah, it’s the giant advertisers paying Google to show their ads in front of you, whether you actually buy anything from them or not. Hundreds of companies chip in and Google sums that total.
Exactly, and even if you bought a few, who the fuck is spending even close to that much a year. Advertisers would also have costs to the products they sell beyond just the marketing budget.
You seem to be misunderstanding the entire premise, I just can’t tell if you’re doing it on purpose or not. They don’t make money from your purchases. To oversimplify everything, they make money when a company pays them to show you an ad. They also make money by watching everything you do and building a profile about you that they then sell to the companies so they can pay Google to show you ads that they think might tempt you the most. There are very complicated metrics running behind the screen that determines how likely the purchases you have made were affected by ads shown to you, whether you clicked on the ads or not. You might think you haven’t been affected by ads or made Google $16,000 because you didn’t spend $16,000, but that’s not how they make money from you.
I know, but if that much money has been spent it is at a huge loss to who ever is spending it