&gt; As much as I dislike some of the current trends (and I do digital media for a living mind you), I do have to point out that this stuff wouldn&#x27;t be done if it didn&#x27;t work.<p>Are we sure of that?  It might depend on our definition of &quot;work&quot;.  A lot of the people responsible for doing this stuff may just be doing it because if they admit that none of it works, they&#x27;ll have nothing else to offer and will be out of a job.  It&#x27;s not terribly hard to make up data showing some kind of effectiveness, or just to misinterpret real data in a way that can convince others to let you keep doing it.  For every marketing or advertising craftsman out there who builds something that works, gathers useful data, and interprets that data honestly, there are probably 20 people who have no clue and just keep churning out the same stuff because they don&#x27;t have anything else to offer.  Whether it&#x27;s profitable, or profitable enough to be worth doing, is anyone&#x27;s guess.  Given how cheap impressions are, especially the kind of ultra-low-value impressions that bullshit provides, it&#x27;s pretty difficult to imagine this stuff paying for itself, even if most of it is autogenerated or written by the world&#x27;s most desperate English-speakers.<p>It might help more to come up with other jobs for the people who are putting the bullshit out there.  Jobs they can do well, ideally.  As it stands, I&#x27;m not sure the bullshit is serving their employers as much as it&#x27;s just something for them to do so they keep getting a paycheck.