Why is it "messed up" if it makes advertising more engaging? Facebook essentially does what you describe, by showing your friends the posts/ads of pages you have liked.
I think it's just a spectrum where ads can become a service. What if Netflix could show me movies that friends have recently watched? Or TV ads rendered client-side to have personal details (adapting to the demographics)? What if I was emailed early about new concerts happening in my area, based on what I listen to on Spotify? And then was encouraged to post to FB when I bought tickets.
The last one is a real (Songkick) and is actually one my my favorite services. Though, is it an ad company? They certainly get a referral from Ticketmaster. What if they sold my preferences to Ticketmaster so they could know how to optimize a lineup with listener preferences?
What I'm getting at is that people seem really afraid of customization and personalization. Somehow it's "messed up" if ads capitalize on the network they have built; our reaction is that these free services are taking advantage us.
It's important to remember, if you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold. This is why Google gives away a browser, why Facebook and Twitter remain free, and why Instagram was worth $1B. That number certainly didn't correspond to an iPhone app and a relatively simple backend tech stack -- it bought their growth, user engagement, and stickiness. And that's exactly what they're going to capitalize on to make back the investment.
But this isn't even "your data" that's being used. It's "you" whose likeliness is being leveraged to attain higher ad engagement.
While the use of our data for advertisement is covert in nature, the possible scenario I suggest where "we" ourselves become the advertisement seems very overt to me. I agree that this is similar to facebook likes and shares. However, facebook likes are voluntary actions by me. That is very different from my personal photos (which are even stronger impressions that likes or shares) being used in their original form as advertisements without my knowledge or consent (well I guess I do consent to it if I use the service under the new TOS).
Maybe this will be accepted by society in the coming years, but right here and now, it evokes an eerie "evil-mustache universe" type reaction in me, where my "normal universe personal photos" become mirrored as "evil-mustache universe advertisement photos".
I think it's just a spectrum where ads can become a service. What if Netflix could show me movies that friends have recently watched? Or TV ads rendered client-side to have personal details (adapting to the demographics)? What if I was emailed early about new concerts happening in my area, based on what I listen to on Spotify? And then was encouraged to post to FB when I bought tickets.
The last one is a real (Songkick) and is actually one my my favorite services. Though, is it an ad company? They certainly get a referral from Ticketmaster. What if they sold my preferences to Ticketmaster so they could know how to optimize a lineup with listener preferences?
What I'm getting at is that people seem really afraid of customization and personalization. Somehow it's "messed up" if ads capitalize on the network they have built; our reaction is that these free services are taking advantage us.
It's important to remember, if you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold. This is why Google gives away a browser, why Facebook and Twitter remain free, and why Instagram was worth $1B. That number certainly didn't correspond to an iPhone app and a relatively simple backend tech stack -- it bought their growth, user engagement, and stickiness. And that's exactly what they're going to capitalize on to make back the investment.