But why then are we even getting ads “not aimed at us”? Doesn’t a platform like youtube, which has access to basically all data on the google account, know us better than ourselves? Why all the tracking, only for us to be eternally bothered by stuff we’ll never buy? I’ve lost count of how many “atlas VPN” ads I’ve been bombarded with, and still no intention whatsoever of ever getting it.
I think I found a good solution: I created 3 accounts in 3 different instances. In one instance, I only subscribe to serious stuff like worldnews and technology and things like that. In another account, I subscribe only to memes. Both these accounts have NSFW disabled. The third account is the NFSW one.
At least in the Liftoff app, it’s trivial to change between accounts - so I basically have 3 separate feeds, with the added benefit that if any one of the instances is down I can still use Lemmy and see what’s going on in the “All” tab in any of the instances.
Some beggars do indeed see it as a job and make substantial money, that is just a fact. Doesn’t mean that there are not people in real desperate situations and needing any help they can get.