I mean the banner ads are the tip of the iceberg in terms of what millions of hours of all those brilliant minds are up to. In my mind at least, that goes out to much worse things than banner ads: incitement of all kinds of engagement, the most effective being rage; the infinite scroll that traps people in apps not unlike a slot-machine; the curation algorithms that promote the most insane, bugfuck and completely-detached-from-reality topics, individuals and trends; the normalization of documenting one's life in excruciating detail for no audience, only to find yourself flung into the life of a celebrity at a moments notice without the resources of one to handle it; the weaponization/creation of culture wars and all the monetizable attention that follows them...

It really is no wonder all of this shit has so badly corroded our social structures, given the sheer weight of the resources we've piled into it. If only we could get this kind of effort out for problems that actually need solving, instead of just endlessly punching dopamine out of unsuspecting consumer's brains.