Are Marketers Destroying the World?

When you read the news or scan your favorite social media platforms, do you feel like the world is going crazy? Does your online browsing fill you with a vague (or not-so-vague) sense of impending global doom? Does it seem like everyone hates everyone, nobody can agree on anything, and all public conversations have devolved into a constant “us versus them” tug-of-war? If so, it’s because we’re all being manipulated by content creators — from YouTube vloggers to Fox News talking heads to Huffington Post reporters — who are trying to make us feel certain ways because it’s the best way to make money. Let me explain…

First, let’s start with the golden rule of the Internet: if you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.

Pause for a moment and think about the kinds of things you use online in a given day that you don’t pay for:

• Your email
• Your social media
• Your search engine
• Your news
• Your product reviews
• Your maps/GPS

Now pause for another moment and think about how incredibly expensive it must be to operate those technologies for millions (and, in some cases, billions) of users. Take, for example, your phone’s navigation app. Surely mapping every road…