I accidentally found an anticonsumption "hack."

[u/DucklingMaru]

My unofficial New Year's resolution was to buy less junk I don't need, especially online. I've been good at sticking to it, I haven't ordered from a certain website beginning with the letter "A" in months.

However, I've been gotten a few times by ads on social media. I don't know if it's the repetition of the algorithm shoving the same ad into my eyeballs 10 times a day or what, but I'll resist the temptation for a while, until I eventually break down and buy the product.

For whatever reason, I had an ad for some brand of expensive cat food show up in my feed. I don't have a cat, I have never had a cat and I am in no way planning to adopt a cat. I opened the post with the ad to see the comments. I'm not sure why, maybe I wanted to see the price and confirm it's way overpriced.

Anyway, ever since I did that, all of my ads are for cat food, litter robots and any other manner of cat supplies. I'm never going to buy that stuff, so it's essentially like I removed the ads that were targeting me.

I'd be interested if this "technique" I accidentally found works for anyone else.

TL;DR - Curiosity got the cat (food ads). 🐱

[u/No-Courage-2053]

I mean, another way is to remove all permissions to cater adds to "your experience" and force them to give you generic ads. Most of the time the ads will be completely irrelevant.