“What [#SocialMedia companies] sell are more and more accurate predictions of our behaviour to advertisers, and as that gets more refined, you really have as close as we've ever come to #advertising being a kind of sure thing, where it really works. Even there, most people won't necessarily care about that, because if you tell them:
‘Listen, the thing you really thought you wanted, and went out and bought — you were played by the company. The company placed an ad with #Facebook, and FB delivered it to you because you were the perfect target of that ad.’
I think the person can, at the end of the day, own all of that process and just subsume it with their satisfaction at having bought the thing they now actually want.
‘I wanted a new Prius. Right? I mean, it was time. I needed a new car.’”

— #SamHarris, #MakingSense podcast, https://samharris.org/podcasts/218-welcome-cult-factory/ [subscriber edition]