Sunday, December 22, 2024

Let Us Find the Con Just Right For You

Clickbait ads show promising tables of different options, such as different sets of exercises for people of different ages, shown in a neat little table.  But they're not quite legible.

Inevitably, such clickbait ads lead to your being asked something like 20 questions before you get to any actual information you can look at.

A lot of these questions are not entirely answerable.  Do I exercise every day, 5 times a week, 2 times, or none?  Well it depends on the week, and what you mean by "exercise."  Whatever answer I make I'm soon wishing I could go back and try the other answer.

We know that a profile of us is being built not only for their purposes, but for being sold (no doubt how they make most of their money).  Nevertheless, I've often been interested sufficiently in the final information that I answer these questions until they finally get too overwhelming and I just decide to bail (which seems to be happening in about 90% of all cases now).  

I'm thinking of setting a personal limit, like 3 questions.  If I haven't gotten any information after 3 questions, that's it, goodbye.

Zero might be better.

Another approach is to have you watch 30-60 minutes of glossy information-free "infomertial" before you get to any options, or you can even see the price of the magic elixir at the end of the tunnel.

I've sometimes watched these for quite awhile, but I'm getting tired of this approach too.  So 3 minutes and you're out.

Generally of course what I really wanted to see was not the product or service tailored to my needs, but the entire list of available options I can decide which one I want.  The farther it gets away from this, the more I'm going to lose interest.*

(*Sometimes I can find out such information with a web search in another window.  That's what I'm doing more and more, and not bothering with the clickbait ads.)


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